Frida

Aroview: Long awaited biopic of the celebrated 20th-century Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, whose troubled marriage to Diego Riviera and crippling injuries were fed into her surreal, disturbing and highly influential art.

A labour of love for lead actress Salma Hayek, this populist account takes few real risks, yet its chief subject is compulsively interesting, Kahlo was not only a painter, but an avowed Marxist and bisexual to boot. Magic realist touches throughout the film are wholly appropriate, with surrealistic sequences (where the paintings come to life) heightening the effect of this strange life story.