Kate Moss movie Moss & Freud at the London Film Festival review: ★★★
It’s often a red flag when stars executive produce their own biopics. Elton John’s Rocketman was viewed as too sympathetic to its subject, and Kate Moss has certainly been too close to this saccharine but not meritless Kate Moss film premiering at the London Film Festival.
In one scene in Moss & Freud, painter Lucian Freud, the grandson of Sigmund, is seen breaking up his easels in frustration over his developing feelings for Moss, who has been sitting as his muse. It’s a tearaway few seconds that ultimately glamorises Freud’s fits of rage, and the sort of thing that should have been properly examined over a number of textured scenes (especially given recent news lines about Freud’s alleged cruelties towards his former lover).
But James Lucas’ script scurries past the detail, presenting instead a whistle-stop tour through Moss and Freud’s friendship. She 29 and him in his mid-eighties, the film takes as its muse the real life occasion when, over nine months, Kate Moss sat for Freud who painted her naked (the work sold for nearly four million at auction in 2005).
It is a twee concept, but the conversations they must have had! it’s just a shame we witness few of them, the language too often clipped and unrealistic, telling us rather than showing.
Kate Moss biopic feels overly sentimental
Derek Jacobi is obviously phenomenal. Lording around with his paint brushes and fabulously camp scarves, he has the gravitas and octogenarian perspective to land a giant like Freud, layering nuance where there could be convention. Jacobi’s painter wears his emotions on his sleeve; he’s forever twitching his eyebrows when he’s anguished and folding up his mouth while being enjoyably hedonistic. Some of the best scenes involve Jacobi and Kate Moss actor Ellie Bamber taking drugs together or dancing in nightclubs. They fizz together, but on screen alone Bamber falls short of Moss’ grit and charisma.
Kate Moss retains her clout and is still in the gossip columns on the daily, but Moss & Freud can’t play catch up with its muse.
The London Film Festival continues through to 19 October; tickets to the Kate Moss biopic Moss & Freud screening on 16 October are available. Here is City AM’s selection of the buzziest movies