Frida is a paint by numbers biopic. It’s melodramatic, cliched, boring claptrap, no matter how much they tried to dress it up with moving Frida Kahlo art. The radiantly beautiful Salma Hayek is horribly cast as the traumatized figure of Kahlo and has to overact through the whole film to try and make up for it. Someone else should have starred no matter how involved she was with the development of this project. Also, normally I find Hayek to be quite a charmer, but she’s never been able to believably fake laugh on film. It’s always bothered me. Director Julie Taymor’s sometimes inspired production work never makes up for her tacky, showy camera work, which always distracts rather than enhances; and here is no exception. That is, when you’re not already being distracted by all of the unnecessary stunt casting cameos. The only things saving this film from being a total waste of time are Alfred Molina hamming as an unlikely womanizer and the brief glimpses we get of Hayek’s ludicrously awesome bewbs.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Short Round: Frida (2002) **/*****
Frida is a paint by numbers biopic. It’s melodramatic, cliched, boring claptrap, no matter how much they tried to dress it up with moving Frida Kahlo art. The radiantly beautiful Salma Hayek is horribly cast as the traumatized figure of Kahlo and has to overact through the whole film to try and make up for it. Someone else should have starred no matter how involved she was with the development of this project. Also, normally I find Hayek to be quite a charmer, but she’s never been able to believably fake laugh on film. It’s always bothered me. Director Julie Taymor’s sometimes inspired production work never makes up for her tacky, showy camera work, which always distracts rather than enhances; and here is no exception. That is, when you’re not already being distracted by all of the unnecessary stunt casting cameos. The only things saving this film from being a total waste of time are Alfred Molina hamming as an unlikely womanizer and the brief glimpses we get of Hayek’s ludicrously awesome bewbs.
