Becoming Ingrid is certainly a good way to spend two hours. The plot moves along nicely, and the characters are appealing (well, except for the publisher, whose part is either undewrwritten or underperformed). But there's nothing special about the plot, variations of which have been told many times before. So the performance of Alba August in the absolutely central role of Astrid, highly praised by most, is key to the film. I had problems with it. She seemed to be the kind of tough-minded woman who could, say, shut down a factory and put 2,000 people out of work without qualms if that was her job. On the other hand, she's this sensitive -- at times weepy -- woman whose early travails made her the teller of time-honored children's stories. For me, August's Astrid doesn't mesh these two strand well. Ultimately the film -- whose basic plot is woven at points with admiring letters from schoolchildren to the now-elderly Astrid -- is unreavling of just how she became the woman whose stories are so loved across the world (not least by the Gilmore Girls, if you remember the Pippi episode).
Review of Becoming Astrid
