Trailer
Plot summary
Frida Kahlo is eighteen when the wooden-bodied bus she is riding collides with a streetcar; a metal pole pierces her, and the injuries stay with her. During her long recovery, her father hands her a canvas, and she begins to paint. Once she can walk again with a cane, she takes her paintings to the muralist Diego Rivera and asks him to judge them honestly. Rivera admires them, and the two begin a relationship. She agrees to marry him but asks for loyalty, though she says nothing of fidelity. Rivera has many affairs, and Kahlo takes lovers as well, both men and women. In 1934 the couple travels to New York, where the Rockefeller family has commissioned Rivera to paint a mural inside Rockefeller Center.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Frida (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In a December 2017 op-ed for The New York Times, Hayek stated that Weinstein attempted to thwart the making of the film because she had refused to grant him sexual favors, and had threatened to shut the film down unless she agreed to a full-frontal nude sex scene with another woman.
- Hayek was so determined to play the role that she sought out Dolores Olmedo Patino, longtime lover of Diego Rivera and, after his death, administrator of the rights to Frida and Rivera's art; Hayek personally secured access to Kahlo's paintings from her.
- In the spring of 1991 director Luis Valdez began production on a New Line feature about Frida Kahlo starring Laura San Giacomo, whose casting drew objections over her non-Hispanic ethnicity; New Line complied with the protesters' demands and left the then-titled Frida and Diego in August 1992.
- Molina got the part after Hayek turned up backstage at the Broadway play "Art" rather sheepishly and asked if he would like to play Diego; Molina went on to gain 35 pounds to play Rivera.
- By 1993 Valdez had retitled his rival film The Two Fridas, with San Giacomo and Ofelia Medina both playing the portraitist; Raúl Juliá was cast as Diego Rivera, but his death further delayed the movie.
- In 2025 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
- Edward Norton rewrote the script at least once but was not credited as a writer, leaving his work on the screenplay off the finished film's credits.
