HILMA ★★★
Cert 12A In cinemas now
Swedish artist Hilma af Klint is on something of a roll. A biography has just come out, there was a hit exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2019, and next year her abstract canvases will be taking over London’s Tate Modern... so it’s a shame she was largely unrecognised when she died in 1944.
Here, fellow Swede Lasse Hallström (Chocolat) tries to add fuel to her belated fame with a well-meaning but slightly stodgy drama which focuses on her early years.
With a cast (including model Lily Cole) slightly distractingly speaking a variety of English accents, the film details how she was haunted by the death of her sister, attended seances, formed an all-female collective known as The Five and came to believe that invisible spirits were guiding her paintbrush.
The director’s daughter Tora Hallström is a compelling presence as the artist, but the characters feel thinly sketched.