'Moss & Freud' is the most revealing portrait of a supermodel in years, plus the fashion films every obsessive should see

Moss & Freud, which opens in British cinemas on 29 May, is a semi-fictionalised account of the nine months in 2002 when Kate Moss sat for the painter Lucian Freud, night after night from 7pm to 2am, for what became Naked Portrait 2002. The painting sold at auction in 2005 for £3,928,000. The film stars Ellie Bamber as Moss and Derek Jacobi as Freud, and was written and directed by the Oscar-winning British-New Zealand filmmaker James Lucas.

Moss, who spent thirty years declining every documentary maker and filmmaker who approached her, not only approved this one but came on board as executive producer, helped select Bamber for the role, and spent time with the actor so she could render her accurately.

Lucas approached Moss the old-fashioned way, with a letter sent through the post, outlining his vision and his argument that the Freud sitting represented a sea-change moment in her life. She responded quickly. His interest was partly in the cultural texture of early 2000s London — the fashion shows, the Mayfair parties, the particular atmosphere of a city fizzling with creativity and hedonism — and partly in a more intimate question: what two figures from such different worlds might actually have said to each other across a studio, night after night, for nearly a year.

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The film keeps its scope deliberately narrow, confining itself to roughly that single year, and this restraint is both its strength and its limitation. Within it, Moss discovers she is pregnant, falls for Jefferson Hack, the editor of Dazed & Confused, who would become the father of her daughter Lila Grace and begins to re-examine the life she has built.

The problem with the producer

It is often a red flag when a subject executive produces their own biopic. The comparison with Rocketman surfaces in several reviews, and with reason. Lucas's script moves quickly past details that warranted more attention and Freud's fits of rage are briefly shown and just as quickly left behind, particularly pointed given recent reporting on his conduct towards former partners.

Moss has a strong narrative arc across the film while Freud, who died in 2011, is given considerably less complexity

Five films that map the history of the supermodel

Gia (1998): By the time the supermodel became a cultural phenomenon in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gia Carangi was already dead. This biopic, with Angelina Jolie in the lead role, chronicles the short career of Carangi, believed to be among the first supermodels, who died at 26 from complications caused by AIDS.

UnZipped (1995): Made by Douglas Keeve, this documentary follows designer Isaac Mizrahi through the preparation of his Fall 1994 collection, with Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Kate Moss among its central figures.

The Supermodels (2023, Apple TV+): Directed by Academy Award-winner Barbara Kopple, this docuseries traces the lives of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, and Linda Evangelista from the 1980s through the height of the 90s fashion scene. It is the most authoritative account yet of how those four women collectively changed what modelling could mean

Desert Flower (2009): A biographical drama about Waris Dirie, born into a Somali nomadic community, who fled an arranged marriage at thirteen before becoming one of the world's most recognisable faces, the film forces a reckoning with the global distances, that the modelling industry routinely compressed without examining. Dirie later became a UN Special Ambassador and campaigner against FGM, and the film's significance extends well beyond fashion history.

McQueen (2018): This documentary reconstructs Alexander McQueen's life and creative process through his own voice, drawn from interviews and archival footage. It is not strictly a film about models, but it is an essential companion to any serious engagement with the era Moss & Freud depicts.