Moss & Freud Film Review: A Captivating Watch That Falls Short of Capturing Their True Nature

MOSS & FREUD

(15) 100mins

★★★☆☆

BASED on a true story, the opening scene of this sees supermodel hurtling down a dark country road in a convertible sports car surrounded by empty bottles of champagne.

She lights fags, throws her arms up in the air and concentrates on everything but the road.

Britain’s most famous supermodel Kate Moss is played by Ellie Bamber Credit: Vertigo Releasing/Sean Gleason. All Rights Reserved One scene shows Freud (played by Derek Jacobi) and Moss taking opium together under a blossom tree Credit: Unknown

So far, so rock’n’roll in the tale of how Britain’s most famous supermodel () was to be painted by one of Britain’s most famous artists, Lucian Freud (played by Derek Jacobi).

in 2002 at the National Portrait Gallery in central ­London, and it’s revealed that the pair have been introduced by his daughter, fashion designer Bella (Jasmine Blackborow).

He explains that sitting for a portrait for him takes time, something the jet­setting model has little of to spare.

Soon Moss is on a plane to Berlin, going into an S&M club and waking up with a heavy head and regrets.

So she decides that sitting for the portrait will give her some peace.

And after getting her iconic pixie haircut, she arrives at Freud’s studio and strips naked on a bed.

She was 28 at the time, and the notoriously severe artist was 80. But the odd couple are strangely similar.

Both infatuate and intrigue people.

And with both having reputations as glamorous lovers, there were rumours that their relationship was more than just work. This film, which counts Moss as an executive producer, puts paid to all that.

Instead, the union is portrayed as the meeting of bohemian, creative minds. Making it turn from boho to bland relatively quickly.

Bamber’s performance is certainly a superb impression of the model. She has the look, the attitude and the — overused — laugh down completely.

And she carries off the nudity in the scenes with admirable confidence.

Jacobi is also very watchable, although his ­Germanic accent goes up and down at different times.

And while the narrative goes from riotous rock to cuddly times in the Cotswolds, it never gets near the depth of the pair’s ­relationship or the process of the painting.

One scene shows them taking opium together, but, again, it’s under a blossom tree with plenty of head-thrown-back laughing and Freud looking like a cute grandad.

It is a perfectly watchable film on a fascinating moment in cultural history, but it never really shows either character as the fascinating and fierce forces of nature they clearly were.

POWER BALLAD

(15) 98mins

★★★★☆

Danny, played by Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers, and Rick, played by Paul Rudd, in Power Ballad Credit: ¿ 2026 Lionsgate

AS the former frontman of a rock band, Rick (Paul Rudd) had a record contract and ambitions to headline stadiums.

But his dreams didn’t quite go to plan.

Instead, he’s a married dad, living in and getting by as a wedding singer covering hits he did not write in Irish ensemble Bride And Groove.

When ex-boyband member Danny (Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers) is a guest at one wedding, the two perform an impromptu duet, which turns into a whisky-fuelled, late-night, guitar jamming session.

Danny confesses he’s desperate for a song to take back to his label in that will establish him as a credible solo artist.

Rick helps him improve some work-in-progress rifts, then plays him his own songs, including catchy ditty How To Write A Song Without You, penned over a decade ago. He then leaves, hungover, and thinks nothing more of it.

Until, that is, he hears his own lyrics blaring out in a shopping centre.

His song is now a worldwide smash and Rick can’t find the evidence to prove he wrote it.

Director John Carney (Sing Street, Once) ensures the earworm ballad in question is genuinely good enough to be believable as a monster success.

And Rudd and Jonas pair perfectly in a funny, feel-good way as musicians who both need the song to change their lives.

Laura Stott

FAIRYLAND

(15) 116mins

★★★★☆

Chain-smoking Steve (Scoot McNairy) and daughter Alysia (Emilia Jones) in Fairyland Credit: Icon Film Distribution. All Rights Reserved

THIS touching and fascinating film is adapted from the bestselling memoir by Alysia Abbott, whose father was poet Steve Abbott.

With a gay, single dad, Alysia’s upbringing was certainly not traditional.

We first see her as a young girl in the 1970s, learning her mother has died in a car accident.

Softly spoken, chain-smoking Steve (Scoot McNairy) is then responsible for her. He admits to only dating men, apart from Alysia’s mother, who was his best friend.

Following his dream of becoming a poet, he decides to take his daughter to , where they live in a chaotic, bohemian flat.

Steve’s love life is equally chaotic.

While he clearly believes in open romance, the men he is with are often not openly gay.

The film then moves into the 1980s, when homosexuality becomes more mainstream, but the Aids crisis then sweeps in, killing more than 130,000 in the US. Including Steve.

Alysia (Emilia Jones) nurses him through his dying months.

The relationship is sometimes fraught, with Steve trying to explain the decisions he has made and Alysia resenting some as selfish.

But the love between them is palpable.

This well-acted and honest film shows the heart-wrenching loss of joy and talent that Aids took from the world.