Nancy Hardin
Occupation
Filmmaker
Frida Review
Very Good
After withstanding a decade of development, a race between two competing projects, and the mural-sized egos of Jennifer Lopez and Madonna, a film biography of Frida Kahlo has finally made it to the screen. Who would have guessed that a film about a mustachioed, Mexican woman with a peg leg and an overweight, Communist husband would generate so much interest? Nevertheless Frida's producers, including star Salma Hayek, somehow prevented this unique story from becoming a disastrous vanity project and ended up with an unlikely Hollywood film.
Frida Kahlo's (Salma Hayek) first meeting with Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) and her injury in a horrible bus accident set in motion the two major forces behind Frida. Bedridden for months in a full-body cast, the young Frida keeps herself busy--and learns to express her internal passions and pain--through drawing and painting. Falling in with the womanizing Rivera and his bohemian cadre of artists and revolutionaries deepens Frida's commitment to her painting and life with the loyal but philandering muralist. Their art carries them from Mexico to New York and back in the company of such impressive historical figures as David Alfaro Siqueiros (Antonio Banderas), Nelson Rockefeller (Ed Norton), and Leon Trotsky (Geoffery Rush).
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