Period drama masters Merchant Ivory tackle one of Spain's most iconic artists, or rather, his love life. Francoise Gilot (Natascha McElhone) becomes eloped with the eccentric painter (Anthony Hopkins) during WW2, and the film follows the highs and lows of said relationship as she goes from wide eyed girl to lover to mother of the hot blooded artist's kids.
James Ivory's biopic of Picasso's premiere mistress does have good performances, even if the usually great Hopkins, disappointingly, never fully transforms into the legendary painter and so instead, the film ends up being carried by McElhone as a sympathetic yet ultimately frustrated and abused woman. There are also some welcome moments of humour, usually via Picasso's rather upfront comments & observations about others, and even some inventive flashback sequences that take on Picasso-esque aesthetics with very Cubist rooms and characters.
However, the screenplay never really explores why Gilot or the other women are drawn to and stay with Picasso, despite his duplicitous nature and often angry temperament. The film paints him (hah) as a genius, but also as kind of shameless and a bit of a manbaby, but the why, fame aside, is never looked at in any meaningful way. It's very much the token 'well, it happened in real life, so it's here' card of lazy biopics. Hopkins being given a two-dimensional Picasso doesn't help.
Furthermore, Picasso's art never gets much attention nor examination, missing a great opportunity for parallels and psychological exploration of our leads. This is an unbelievable blunder if you're going to even bother making a film on the man in the first place, as there's a lot of rich subtext to mine and would've helped with defining more of Picasso and his appeal.
Unless you're a Merchant ivory completionist, stick with Remains of The Day.
