Frida review

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

It's taken 10 years for Salma Hayek to bring this biopic of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo to the screen. That's a lot of work and one hell of a lot of persistence, but the end result is just about worth it: this is a dramatically competent and visually arresting foray into the painter's life and work.

Having cast herself as the monobrowed surrealist, Hayek has neatly dodged the vanity project tag by surrounding her bold central performance with a gallery of international acting talent. She also does well in hiring Titus director Julie Taymor, a helmer whose visual sensibilities chime nicely with Kahlo's own.

Frida had some life: a horrific bus accident when she was just 18 left her seriously disabled, a tempestuous marriage to philandering muralist Diego Rivera (an excellent Alfred Molina), affairs with Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush) and Italian photographer Tina Modotti (Ashley Judd)... Curiously, though, Frida is more engaging than truly captivating, despite having four scripters (plus Edward Norton, who cameos as mogul Nelson Rockefeller and did an uncredited last-minute rewrite).

The problem is a slight friction between form and content. For while Frida makes for an attractively unconventional heroine - - a hard-drinking, chain-smoking bisexual - - the film unspools on boringly conventional lines, episodically tracing the highs and lows of her life. It's only when Taymor presents vivid 3D visualisations of Kahlo's freakily autobiographical pictures that Frida escapes the shackles of hagiography and starts to capture the essence of its iconoclastic heroine.

The Total Film team are made up of the finest minds in all of film journalism. They are: Editor Jane Crowther, Deputy Editor Matt Maytum, Reviews Ed Matthew Leyland, News Editor Jordan Farley, and Online Editor Emily Murray. Expect exclusive news, reviews, features, and more from the team behind the smarter movie magazine. 

Latest in Comedy Movies
John Cena in Barbie
John Cena comedy Coyote Vs. Acme might come out after all, over a year after it was controversially shelved
Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore 2
29 years later, Happy Gilmore 2 trailer sees Adam Sandler return to the course with familiar faces – and confirms release date
Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jonah Hill, and Michael Cera in Superbad
Seth Rogen says Sony wouldn't let Jonah Hill use a PlayStation in Superbad as his character was too "reprehensible": "They're like, 'We can't have him interact with our products'"
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in Freakier Friday
Freaky Friday 2 trailer promises more body-swap hilarity from Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in long-awaited sequel
Jenna Ortega as Astrid Deetz in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice 2 star Jenna Ortega would love to star in another classic horror comedy franchise: Gremlins
This is Spinal Tap
First Spinal Tap 2 teaser reveals release date for comedy sequel that’s over 40 years in the making
Latest in Reviews
Photographs of the Agricola board game in play
Agricola review: "Accurate representation of the highly competitive and often unstable world of agriculture"
Photos taken by writer Rosalie Newcombe of the Shure MV7i microphone, within a pink and white themed room.
Shure MV7i review - convenience and excellence rolled into one superb sounding package
Key art for Atomfall showing a character in the English countryside looking at a nuclear plant some distance away
Atomfall review: "This isn't British Fallout – it's something much better than that"
Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% gaming keyboard with purple RGB lighting on a desk setup
Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% review: "a niche luxury"
A woman chasing a shining butterfly with a leaping cat on her shoulder in InZOI
inZOI review: "Currently feels like a soulless imitation of the worst parts of The Sims"
White Razer Basilisk V3 Pro 35K gaming mouse standing up against a green-lit setup
Razer Basilisk V3 Pro 35K review: "hampered by its predecessor"