Synopsis
When Astrid Lindgren was very young something happened that affected her profoundly, and this combination of both miracle and calamity came to shape her entire life. It was an event that transformed her into one of the most inspiring women of our age and the storyteller a whole world would come to love. This is the story of when a young Astrid, despite the expectations of her time and religious upbringing, decided to break free from society's norms and follow her heart.
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Cast
- Alba AugustAstrid Lindgren
- Maria BonnevieHanna
- Trine DyrholmMarie
- Henrik RafaelsenBlomberg
- Magnus KrepperSamuel
- Björn GustafssonSture
- Marius DamslevLasse
- Willy Ramnek PetriGunnar
- Liv LeMoyneSaga
- Sofia KaremyrMadicken
Recommendations
- 90
The New York Times
Erik Molberg Hansen’s relaxed camera movements and fuzzy-soft compositions are quite beautiful, and the performances — including the superb Trine Dyrholm as the baby’s Danish foster mother — are pitch-perfect. Best of all is the magnetic August, whose open, mobile features can slide from plain to lovely with just a shift in the light and whose embrace of the character is a joy to watch. - 88
Chicago Tribune
Throughout Becoming Astrid, August acquits herself brilliantly; the woman we come to know is a tangle of impulses and qualities, and feels vibrantly alive. - 75
RogerEbert.com
This film about an exemplary woman, made by women, is as much a pleasure as it is a lesson. - 75
Washington Post
This familiar-sounding melodrama works because of the extraordinary performance, in the title role, by Alba August, a young actress whose every emotion is made manifest, like passing clouds or a burst of sunshine, on her uncannily expressive face. - 70
Arizona Republic
This is not a flat and lifeless biopic in which a creation loses a bit of its wonder in the dissection of its inspiration. “Becoming Astrid” sidesteps that pitfall by focusing on the writer’s painful passage into womanhood, telling an intimate and unhurried story of quiet triumph over pain. - 60
Los Angeles Times
The film’s occasional flatness of tone isn’t always well-used — these may be the raw materials for a classic Hollywood weepie, but sometimes you want to see filmmaking, not a camera pointed in the general direction of who’s talking. - 50
Slant Magazine
Despite convincing performances, the film is hampered by its stylistic and moral conventionality. - 50
Austin Chronicle
Becoming Astrid’s saving grace is Alba August. She is in almost every frame of this film, and gives life to what, on paper, amounts to a Lifetime channel biopic.
