OxfordPress.com

Grade: A-

Verdict: Ten years in the making, and it was worth the wait.

Details: Starring Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina and Ashley Judd. Directed by Julie Taymor. Rated R for sexuality/nudity and language. 122 minutes.

See it: Local theaters and showtimes for [an error occurred while processing this directive]Frida

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Review: Salma Hayek's dream has become a surreal reality with "Frida."

Ten years in the making--and at one point competing with a similar project that would have starred Jennifer Lopez--Hayek's portrayal of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo finally makes it to the screen. And it was worth the wait.

Like Kahlo's self portraits, "Frida" is visually stunning -- vibrant and colorful, sometimes horrific, but always strikingly direct. It's also elaborately theatrical, as you would imagine from director Julie Taymor, a Tony winner for her staging of "The Lion King" on Broadway.

Taymor repeatedly uses Kahlo's paintings as a launching point for the action: She literally brings them to life. At times, the imagery may seem like a reach, but the effect is so imaginative, it's hard not to surrender.

The script, based on Hayden Herrera's 1983 biography, is credited to four people, with a rewrite by Hayek's off-screen boyfriend, Edward Norton (who also appears in a couple of scenes as Nelson Rockefeller). Normally, so many writers is a bad sign; thankfully, they've stayed essentially true to Kahlo's life, because the truth is stranger than fiction.

"Frida" follows Kahlo from her schoolgirl days in Mexico City in the early 1920s through her romance and marriage to muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), who was 21 years her senior, to her own development as a painter. As she gained fame, her already poor health rapidly declined, and she died in 1954 at 47.

The tempestuous, high-profile couple debates politics with Rivera's rival, David Siqueiros (Antonio Banderas), parties with photographer Tina Modotti (Ashley Judd), and travels to New York, where the communist Rivera causes a furor by painting a mural in Rockefeller Center that depicts Lenin.

There are a few minor discrepancies.

The film doesn't mention that Kahlo's lifetime of physical pain began with polio at age 6, not with the September 1925 bus accident that nearly killed her at 18. It shows Kahlo suffering a miscarriage while in New York for Rivera's exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, when she really miscarried in Detroit.

And it depicts her as being open about her sexual dalliances, both with men and women. While bisexual, Kahlo was discreet about her affairs--unlike Rivera, who warned her from the start that he was "physiologically incapable of fidelity." (A tango at a crowded party between Kahlo and Modotti, which ends with a passionate kiss, probably never happened, but it's a sexy, beautifully choreographed scene.)

Because any film about Kahlo is just as much about Rivera--if the couple were alive today, they'd be daily gossip fodder for the New York Post's Page Six--"Frida" belongs just as much to Molina as it does to Hayek.

Calling their relationship complicated doesn't even begin to explain it: Rivera cheated on Kahlo shamelessly, including a devastating affair with her sister, Cristina. Why she stayed with him was unfathomable: Fat, brash and selfish, he reminded her of a toad, she often said.

But Molina's portrayal of the muralist is so vivid, it helps explain the mystery of their bond. He was her mentor, then her colleague. He was her friend, then her lover. He was fascinating and dynamic, and he understood her in a way no one else had, or ever would.

Hayek's portrayal of Kahlo is just as powerful. You don't feel like you're watching an actress recreating the key events of a famous person's history; you feel like you're watching the artist come to life before you.

It's not just that Hayek bears a great physical resemblance to Kahlo, complete with the trademark unibrow (though she stopped short of an obvious mustache).

Hayek brings such infectious joy and breathless energy to the role, such palpable drama and pathos, she's positively magnetic. It's a performance that will change her career.

— Christy Lemire, The Associated Press