A wonderful film … Selma Heyek is terrific as Frida Kahlo, a young painter who never quite believes in her own artistry. When complimented by Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), she demurs, and Rivera says: “You have to trust a true compliment as much as a critique.”
Revolution, radical talk, sex, booze and parties – heady stuff – the evolution of love and hatred, artistry and doubt.
“We’ll have to get married, you know,” says Rivera … but “I’m physiologically incapable of fidelity. Is that important to you?”
“Loyalty is important,” and for the pledge of his loyalty, Frida accepts his marriage proposal. Her mother, skeptical, is persuaded by her father who sees this marriage as a source of some financial support. Neither callous nor cruel, her Father simply wants the family to survive.
It's a tempestuous marriage at best.
In some respects, it’s a beauty and the beast story, but the beast prevails and slowly corrupts Frida’s heart and artistry.
Ultimately, Frida and Rivera’s second wife (Frida is his third) become friends and confidants. She says to Frida, “He belongs to no one. He belongs only to himself.”
In a difficult conversation toward the end, she says, "You've been my comrade, my fellow artist, my best friend, but you've never been my husband."
Diego Garcia, a great artist … and Frida, too … but the film poses the age-old question, can such creativity exist without some version of insanity, self-destruction and destruction of others. Yet their love endures, sort of. And sometimes that's all we can expect; anything more is grace.
Strikingly, both Hayek and Molina look like their counterparts.
Everything flows well, and the story is told compassionately. I feel that I know something of the passion, the longing, the artistic impulse, that drove these two creative people.
A film worth seeing.
