Leonora in the Morning Light, a biopic of the pioneering British surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, retells her extraordinary life with intelligence and restraint, though not quite enough imagination. The film covers Carrington's journey from London to Paris, where she ran away at age 20 to be an artist, living with the married surrealist Max Ernst, who was more than twice her age. The age gap is not highlighted, as Carrington is played by Olivia Vinall, in her late 30s, who portrays the artist from Paris until she settled in Mexico in the 1940s.
Vinall's performance is described as spiky, fierce and uncompromising, fitting for a woman who did not seek approval. The film is adapted from a biographical novel by Elena Poniatowska. In Paris, Carrington discovers the surrealists' circle is male-dominated, with objectionable attitudes toward women. She gives short shrift to men like André Breton and Salvador Dalí, who drivel on about woman as the divine muse. However, the dialogue clunks along unconvincingly, with lines such as one spoken to Ernst: 'I don't want to be your wife. I want to be your lover.'
The pair move to southern France, where they work productively in slightly dull scenes until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, when Ernst, a German citizen, is imprisoned. What follows is a dark period in Carrington's life, providing some of the most effective scenes. After crossing the border to Spain, she experiences a mental health crisis and is subjected to barbaric drug treatment in a psychiatric hospital, strapped down and induced convulsions leaving her comatose. Inexplicably, the film omits an episode where her parents dispatch her Irish former nanny to Spain in a submarine to rescue her.
The film then 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.
