(2002)
3
Michael Hastings
The life of an uncompromising, iconoclastic artist has never seemed as rote and inevitable as it does in Julie Taymor's Frida, an intermittently engaging but wholly ordinary biography that wouldn't be out of place premiering on a basic-cable channel. Ticking off the events in Kahlo's life like a grade-school filmstrip, Frida's screenplay -- credited to no less than four writers, not including the purported rewrites from Ed Norton -- is full of clumsy passage-of-time indicators and halting, expository dialogue. Luckily, the performers manage to bring it alive somewhat: Though notably lacking in the kind of mythic swagger Kahlo requires, Salma Hayek digs into her long-gestating "role of a lifetime" with vigor. Better yet is Alfred Molina's Diego Rivera, who threatens to swallow the movie whole (both figuratively and literally). To her credit, Taymor attempts to infuse Frida with the kind of broad, expressionistic strokes she lent 2000's Titus -- the movie is nothing if not lush. Cinematographer Rodrigo Pietra renders Mexico as a paradise of reds, blues, and greens, playing up the contrasts between Kahlo's homeland and the steely, blue-gray New York sequences. But however brilliant they often are, Taymor's directorial flourishes are just that, and Frida -- which by all accounts could've been as daring as Vincent and Theo or Before Night Falls -- never rises above standard bio-pic fare.
awards for Frida on AllMovie
Frida (2002)
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
|
Nominated |
Best Actress
|
2002 |
|
Nominated |
Best Art Direction
|
2002 |
|
Nominated |
Best Costume Design
|
2002 |
|
Won |
Best Makeup
|
2002 |
|
Won |
Best Score
|
2002 |
|
Nominated |
Best Song
|
2002 |
American Film Institute
|
Won |
Top Ten Movie of the Year
|
2002 |
American Society of Cinematographers
|
Nominated |
Best Cinematography
|
2002 |
Broadcast Film Critics Association
|
Nominated |
Best Supporting Actor
|
2002 |
|
Nominated |
Best Actress
|
2003 |
Hollywood Foreign Press Association
|
Nominated |
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
|
2002 |
National Board of Review
|
Nominated |
Best Picture
|
2002 |
Screen Actors Guild
|
Nominated |
Best Actress
|
2002 |
|
Nominated |
Best Supporting Actor
|
2002 |
Telluride Film Festival
|
Presented |
Film Presented
|
2002 |
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