TWIGGY – Review by Loren King
What a charming and captivating time capsule about a woman who embodied her time and then transcended it. Director Sadie Frost’s Twiggy is, of course, a delightful memory trip back to the swinging ‘60s in London and the ascendency of working class teenager Lesley Hornby to the heights of fashion fame. As gamine faced, slim and androgynous Twiggy, she broke all the rules for what women should look and act like. But because Twiggy is so singular in her authenticity and unabashedly positive nature, the film become a stirring portrait of something else entirely.
Some clips are now, and were likely even then, shocking in their condescension. To see Twiggy, with her refreshingly lack of pretension and guile completely unnerve a pompous Woody Allen, of all people, as he attempts to ridicule her intelligence is welcome but infuriating. Of course, it’s Twiggy, with talent and charm to spare, who has the last laugh. Not only did she wow critics with her ambitious movie debut in Ken Russell’s 1971 musical The Boy Friend, winning two Golden Globes, but costar Tommy Tune tapped her to star with him in his George and Ira Gershwin Broadway musical My One and Only which earned Twiggy a deserved Tony Award nomination.
Frost makes good use of talking heads, especially former models Brooke Shields, Joanna Lumley, Sienna Miller and Poppy Delevingne who provide social and cultural context about the industry. But it’s Twiggy herself, still gorgeous, still working, happily married and with a loving adult daughter, who is still the best example of living one’s best life with joy and gratitude.
