Freida Pinto seems to have conquered the west as the starlet of Slumdog Millionaire but critics and cynics are quite disapproving of Freida Pinto’s Palestinian girl act in Julian Schnabel’s French-Italian film Miral, which is competing for the Golden Lion Trophy in the ongoing Venice Film festival. The film will also travel to Toronto Film Festival later.
However, the fate of the film, which is a screen adaptation of Italo-Palestinian writer Rula Jebreal’s memoirs, is decided. It is severely panned by critics for being boring, and Freida is called unexpressive, and misfit for the character. The guardian.co.uk writes, “Very unhappily, Schnabel has cast Freida Pinto, the Indian star of Slumdog Millionaire, as young Miral, this supposedly proudly Palestinian woman. The miscasting is absolutely awful.”
While Movieweb writes, “Hiam Abbas was in Venice for the premiere of Julian Schnabel’s Miral but curiously Freida Pinto, "Miral" herself, was not. Maybe she saw some unflattering reviews coming.”
Right now Freida is in India and has signed a Hollywood period film that has actor Antonio Banderas which is titled Black Thirst to be directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud of Seven Years in Tibet fame, and will narrate the story of how America started targeting the Gulf as early as 1920 for oil. Freida will play an Arabian princess.
This movie is Freida’s sixth international project. She will next be seen in Woody Allen’s film You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.