FridaMovie Reviews

Poster art for "Frida."

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Avg. Critic Score: 61 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 OK for kids 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Sometimes we feel as if the film careens from one colorful event to another without respite, but sometimes it must have seemed to Frida Kahlo as if her life did, too. Read full review

  • 80
    Washington Post | Stephen Hunter

    Endlessly interesting. It's about people who thought ideas and art mattered, which makes it a rarity today. Read full review

  • 80
    Variety | Deborah Young

    Salma Hayek makes the character an icon of female independence, courage and nonconformity, forecasting special appeal for women viewers. Read full review

  • 70
    The New York Times | Dana Stevens

    At its best when it forsakes earnest psychological exposition for magic realism, when, instead of trying to explain Kahlo's life, it conjures the moods and sensations that fed her art. Read full review

  • 63
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    It's too bad that this long-awaited movie didn't go further than faithfully re-creating Kahlo's artwork and her studied look. Her passionate and tragically short life (she died at 47) is ideal Hollywood material, but the audience is left wanting a more in-depth portrait. Read full review

  • 60
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    Ultimately, the movie's biggest crime is its inability to convey the delicate, damaged texture of Kahlo's life, but also the triumph of her will over intimidating defeat. Read full review

  • 58
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    A revolutionary life has rarely felt less edgy, or the biography of an iconoclast more bourgeois. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Edward Guthmann

    A domestic melodrama with weak dialogue and biopic cliches. Read full review

  • 50
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Hamstrung by a script that seems determined to stop at all the big moments in Frida's life (she died in 1954 at age forty-seven) without giving anything time to resonate. Read full review

  • 50
    Los Angeles Times | Manohla Dargis

    (Hayek's) performance is far from a disgrace, but it lacks gravitas and soul, a sense of passionate purpose, a hint of obsession. The best Hayek can do with her lovely face is cloud it with worry, but the face of Frida Kahlo demands anguish. Read full review

View more reviews for Frida on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says OK for kids 16+ Graphic biopic of artist Frida Kahlo.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this movie is a graphic and explicit rendering of the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek), and in particular, her rocky relationship with fellow artist and husband Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina). There is a lot sex shown between the couple and with their various alternate lovers, including women with whom both Frida and Diego cheat. The atmosphere of almost every scene is charged with either sexual or violent tension, or both. When Frida suffers a miscarriage, the fetus is shown preserved in formaldehyde while she sketches it into a painting. The couple's affiliation with socialist ideologues, especially Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush), brings violence to the forefront -- from barroom brawls to attempted assassinations. Celebration scenes are marked by the presence of copious alcohol consumption, and near the end of her life, Frida is shown to become dependent on various pain medications due to complications from injuries received in a bus accident earlier in her life. The film glorifies Frida and Diego as important artists, while it also shows the misery that they endured.
  • Families can talk about whether an artist must live a tortured life to make important art. Are artists always so strongly principled when it comes to their politics? Why were politics so important in this era of Mexican history? Why does Frida enter into a marriage with Diego despite knowing his horrible record of infidelity? How can Diego remain unapologetic regarding his behavior, and does his behavior justify Frida's own infidelities?
The good stuff
  • message true-1 Positive messages: Romanticizes the tortured life of married artists who constantly disrespect their marital commitments.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Fistfights, shootings, verbal arguments.
  • sex false5 Sex: Multiple scenes of sexual intercourse, rampant marital infidelity, graphic miscarriage scene, and discussion of all the above.
  • language false5 Language: Very strong language.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false5 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Celebration of drinking and smoking, use of drugs to dull pain of medical condition.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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