MOSS & FREUD
United Kingdom, New Zealand, 2025, 110 min
Director: James Lucas
Starring: Ellie Bamber, Derek Jacobi, Tim Downie, and others

Ah, the “folly of the man who disturbed a goddess”!

Glamorous London at the dawn of the new millennium: the theatrical decadence of John Galliano and the gothic sensuality of Alexander McQueen, private parties in Mayfair and exclusive Soho clubs, the weary luxury of nights dissolving into cigarette smoke, camera flashes, and the soft whir of Polaroids. An intoxicating bohemian world inhabited by Vivienne Westwood and Hedi Slimane, Naomi Campbell and Pete Doherty, young artists, musicians, and photographers creating a new fashion-gloss aesthetic — bold, fragile, intoxicating, and dangerously seductive.
It would be hard to imagine two more unalike people.
Kate Moss—already weary of fame, complicated relationships, the intrigues of high fashion, and a perilous flirtation with self-destruction.
Then there was Lucian Freud: the celebrated master of British painting, a fierce misanthrope fiercely protective of his private world.
She was the supermodel who had traded conventional femininity for androgyny, effortless nonchalance, and heroin chic.
He was the last great painter—an outrageous existentialist obsessed with the imperfections of the human body. His distorted figures, mercilessly exposing human vulnerability, shocked even the most seasoned connoisseurs of art.
How did it happen that this irascible genius, who loathed social gatherings and public attention, agreed to paint a portrait of the most scandalously famous model of her generation?
Twenty-eight-year-old Moss and the much older Freud were two people who paid little heed to conventional morality, broke rules with ease, and rarely gave a thought to the consequences.
The tabloids were ecstatic:
“Kate Moss to pose nude for eccentric artist! At night only!”
Black cabs gliding through the rain, the golden glow of Soho after dark, rustling sheets, a dimly lit studio, and the tension between an artist and a woman accustomed to being desired—but not truly observed. With near-documentary precision, the film recreates every stage of the creative process, from charcoal sketches to thick layers of oil paint.
Two worlds—fashion and painting, glamour and art—come together to create one of the most iconic portraits of the early twenty-first century.
This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship...

 

Language: English