The best way to describe this film is as a costume drama like so many done from Jane Austen novels, but using different costumes and a different period. It has that same inherent artificiality which we are asked to accept. Rather disappointing in this case, since we are dealing with a vital and complex artist who could have been presented in a far more realistic and disturbing way. Some of the portrayals are downright strange. "Renoir" looks very like the real-life figure, but, despite how absolutely French - even Parisian - he was is given an almost Italian accent here. And a chameleon. (Don't ask.) Gertrude Stein is portrayed as a hearty vulgar woman more like a bordello madam or frontier bar owner than the heir to a major fortune and a relatively out lesbian unafraid to appear masculine. Cocteau does not have to be portrayed as a preening queen, but surely some hint of his being an elegant gay man of his period should come through? Elsa Zylberstein is truly lovely, and may be a revelation to American viewers who do not know her considerable body of work in France, but she shows little of the ambivalent, probably unhealthy, energy of her real-life model. The rather contrived competition with Picasso is more silly than anything else. And I kept seeing Andy Garcia more than any character. It is surprising to prefer a rather romanticized version of the same story, but having seen "Les Amants de Montparnasse" decades ago, I find that a more powerful rendition of this one.
Review of Modigliani
Modigliani
(2004)
Costume drama with French bohemians and misportrayed historical figures
18 September 2022