Casting a light on the relationship between two famous figures is irresistible, especially when they are, on paper, chalk and cheese. Moss & Freud is a rather formally titled film that recounts the meeting of supermodel Kate Moss and figurative painter Lucien Freud and how, against the odds, they became friends despite their age gap and lifestyles. What emerged from the period immediately after their meeting is recorded for the ages—Freud's portrait, Moss becoming a mother, a poignant photo of the pair in bed years later—but Moss & Freud struggles to make the story of how these came to be anywhere near as enduring.

In the early 21st century, Kate Moss (Ellie Bamber) is an in-demand supermodel. But traumatic experiences in her early career, along with the pressure of her work and private life, are taking their toll. The chance to pose for painter Lucien Freud (Derek Jacobi) is just the tonic—even if it could mean giving up three evenings a week for months. Can the cantankerous figurative painter give Moss the space she needs to rearrange her life, and can the supermodel teach the ageing Freud something about family?

The cast is Moss & Freud's major strength. Having previously played Freud's friend-rival Francis Bacon in 1998's Love is the Devil, Jacobi embodies the late painter well, with a lilting, soft German accent. In some striking scenes, under a shock of grey hair, he uncannily captures Freud's hawkish face. Opposite him, Bamber totally commits to being Kate Moss. Like Jacobi, she's startlingly like her subject at moments, carrying the varying hair, the accent, the nudity and the lifestyle with an almost exhausting openness. The problem is what lies between those performances.

There's a reason Moss comes first in the title—she's the primary focus of the film. Jamie Lucas, writing and directing his first feature, has to weigh up two almost mythological characters, and—in a film executively produced by Moss—he comes down heavily on the model's story. This holds the film back from reaching the potential set by the atmospheric start, in which the pair first meet in a deserted National Gallery.

Considering the painting scenes that break up the film, there isn't much subtlety. At points, the score feels wildly inappropriate. An early, high-octane modelling montage showing the strain on Moss needs some space. Instead, Lucas piles on a tawdry and fast-cut sequence of her crashing an S&M club. The octogenarian doesn't receive any such moments for balance—a highlight is him losing his cool with a stranger in a restaurant, after recounting some incredible parts of his early life.

There's a sense Moss & Freud deliberately undercooks its dramatic revelations. There's more to the scene where Moss playfully reintroduces Freud to opium than the suggestion that he helped the ultimate party girl break her destructive cycle. Moss's help reconnecting the legendary lothario to his daughter feels particularly laboured (Jasmine Blackborow does well with the almost entirely reactionary role of fashion designer Bella Freud, one of his 14 children).

There's no real exploration of Freud's obsession with Moss or much acknowledgement of the rumours that swirled around the pair during their months together. The result is a bit too selective, a bit too shallow. It's a shame, as there are clear parallels that could have underpinned the film's themes. Moss and Freud's bond over tattoos enters the equation late, and the fact that the painting ultimately took nine months, chiming with Moss falling pregnant during the process, and Freud's relationship with his children (he loves “getting women pregnant,” says Bella), is ignored.

A coda jumps forward to the photo of Moss and Freud in bed, and a repeat of the artist's quote that opens the film: “A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art.” That sense of resigned nihilism is lost in Moss & Freud. In its place is a bit too much indulgence and a failure to satisfactorily land the connection between Moss's move from broken figure to mother and the essential truth of Freud's final portrait.

Moss & Freud may mirror the occasional awkwardness that surfaces in their relationship, but perhaps these are two subjects better explored on separate canvases.

Moss & Freud screened as part of the Create strand at the London Film Festival 2025