At the age of 20, debutante Leonora Carrington fled London for Paris to pursue a career as an artist. She lived with surrealist Max Ernst, who was married and more than twice her age. However, this biopic does not dwell on the uncomfortable age gap. Carrington is played by Olivia Vinall, who is in her late 30s and portrays the artist over a decade, from Paris until her settlement in Mexico in the 1940s. Vinall's performance is spiky, fierce, and uncompromising, fitting for a woman who did not seek anyone's approval. She does much of the heavy lifting in this otherwise tepid film.
Adaptation and Setting
The film is adapted from a biographical novel by Elena Poniatowska. We meet Carrington arriving in Paris, where she discovers that the surrealists' circle is another male-dominated world with objectionable attitudes towards women. Carrington gives short shrift to men like André Breton and Salvador Dalí, who drivel on about woman as the divine muse to be worshipped. The dialogue often clunks unconvincingly, such as a line spoken to Ernst (Alexander Scheer): "I don't want to be your wife. I want to be your lover." The pair move to southern France, where they work productively, though these scenes are slightly dull, until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, when Ernst, a German citizen, is imprisoned.
Dark Period and Mental Health Crisis
What follows is a dark period in Carrington's life, providing some of the most effective, if difficult, scenes in the film. After crossing the border to Spain, she becomes unwell and experiences a mental health crisis. In a psychiatric hospital, Carrington undergoes barbaric drug treatment, strapped down and subjected to induced convulsions that leave her comatose, head lolling. Inexplicably, the film-makers omit an episode where her parents dispatch her Irish former nanny to Spain in a submarine to rescue her. Again, the film slips into uneventful storytelling as it shifts to 1940s Mexico, where Carrington lived and worked on her own terms for the rest of her life, largely ignored by the art world. After her death, Carrington became the most valuable British-born female artist at auction when one of her paintings sold for more than £22.5 million in 2024.
Leonora in the Morning Light is in UK and Irish cinemas from 29 May.
