Frida (2002)

Waste of time

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Watching Salma Hayek as young Frida did not help for a good start. She was really unconvincing. Overall I am not impressed with her acting and character. She, or more likely the director, failed to show Frida's ambitions, ideology and pain. We are reminded her having! ambitions through her 30-second dialogs with her father but never explaining what they are. We are reminded that she is in constant pain through her saying that she is a bunch of times but we never see it. She is depicted as a ever joyful, sexy woman, who is not a great artist but a spoiled and radical housewife. The Frida shown in the paintings throughout the movie and the Frida they have created are two completely different persons. Also the politics they somehow focused and spear a lot of time do not have any ground for the viewer.It is unfortunate that a movie inspired by a great artist, with such powerful cast is this unappealing.

It's 1922 Mexico City. Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) is a rebellious student who is intrigued with artist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina). She is severely injured in a trolley accident and left bedridden with lifelong pains. She regains her ability to walk. Diego takes an interest in Frida's work. They get married and begin a passionate complicated relationship. She befriends his jealous ex Lupe Marín. He constantly cheats on her. Their son dies in childbirth. She starts having affairs with both men and women including communist icon Leon Trotsky.I really love the first hour. Her accident, her recovery and their courtship are all very compelling. Then the second half kind of move on and on and on. The problem is that he's such a slut. He never really demonstrates his love for her. I guess there is dependence or codependence. It's not that appealing. He's horrible and it doesn't put her in a great light either. It needs to illuminate her or her art more than what the movie gives.

If you already like the person, then it won't matter what I say. However, a more objective look will reveal that not only Frida the movie sucked; but so Frida, the person portrayed, herself. Especially as an artist. Her life story feels more like a bad TV movie of the week. Yes; it's sad what happened to her. But so what? A lot of other folks had it tougher out there, and you don't see them claiming their 15min of fame or their remaining heir's movie making deals. Why do I have to care about these overrated morons in the first place? I know; because Hollywood told me to. Better stated; their bourgeois friends, whether still living, or otherwise. Nevermind that's an excuse for a liberal gloryfest.- Well, there you go; I guess that's the reason this wasn't made into a film before. It's simply uninteresting. Even the supposedly racy issues. There's nothing I found controversial. I actually wish there was something; that would have make it less boring. I just didn't care for her romances; I found her art void, insipid, infantile, unmoving, overrated and lame; since she couldn't draw better that a 5yo. Also I thought her decisions were stupid, and by extension, so her overall existence. Bias notwithstanding, the only other group that overall liked it were mexicans; unsurprisingly. Sheeple that had some epiphany about her art or liked this movie experience are obv on some weird peyote stuff. I must admit that as a comedy, this works way much better. I laughed so hard at her misfortunes and stupidity that I almost cried. And after all their marriage was a joke too. As a matter of fact; the most interesting part revolves around the Trotsky murder affair, pun intended. Since this is also as much about Diego as it is about Frida. It makes sense to focus on him; because he was the most recognizable talent of the two. She simply comes of as arrogant, pedantic accessory; and being the greatest thing since the invention of the guacamole. The graphic style of the movie was the main thing that kept me watching throughout. Alfred's performance was adequate; and I most also grant that Selma looked and owned the part too. However, that's not enough in my book to gave it a positive review; merely an extra star. And the accents were bothersome and appalling too; specially of the secondary characters. I also knew right away the movie was never meant to be great since it was done in the English lang, not in Spanish. I mean; how many other Spanish Frida movies are out there; besides documentaries? Zero I think, and for a good reason. In the end, I just couldn't care less who Frida Kalho was before; and now that I know, I just despise her. And that is how powerful the effect this movie had on my perception of her...

After being attached to a number of actors, directors, and producers, this long-gestating biography of one of Mexico's most prominent, iconoclastic painters reaches the screen under the guiding hand of producer/star Salma Hayek.Frida is a biographical film which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It stars Hayek in her Academy Award nominated portrayal as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, Diego Rivera.The movie was adapted by Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas and Edward Norton from the book Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera. It was directed by Julie Taymor.Hayek ages some 30 years on screen as she charts Frida Kahlo's life from feisty schoolgirl to Diego Rivera protégée to world-renowned artist in her own right. Frida details Kahlo's affluent upbringing in Mexico City, and her nurturing relationship with her traditional mother and philosophical father. Having already suffered the crippling effects of polio, Kahlo sustains further injuries when a city bus accident nearly ends her life. But in her bed-ridden state, the young artist produces dozens upon dozens of pieces; when she recovers, she presents them to the legendary -- and legendarily temperamental -- Rivera, who takes her under his wing as an artist, a political revolutionary, and, inevitably, a lover. But their relationship is fraught with trouble, as the philandering Rivera traverses the globe painting murals, and Kahlo languishes in obscurity, longing to make her mark on her own.Sporting mustache, Salma Hayek gives a solid performance in the otherwise conventional and mediocre biopic of the noted Spanish artist.Ms. Taymor also gets magnificent performance from Alfred Molina as the oversexed Diego Rivera.The film is passionate, provocative, hilarious, tragic and just dizzyingly beautiful to behold.But nevertheless,the screenplay's flatness ultimately defeats a film that's always a treat to look at.Taymor's only triumph is that her film, despite its distance from us in some ways, is pertinent and enthralling.