Julia (Kate Winslet) takes her two daughters to 1970s Morocco to live a more interesting life in this movie, based on the book of the same name by Esther Freud. Freud was a daughter of one of the billion mistresses who begot children by the painter and asshole, Lucian Freud (son of Sigmund “Women Are Aliens” Freud). None of which has much to do with the movie, but I think it’s interesting.
Julia arrives in Marrakesh with the vague idea of seeking spiritual enlightenment. Her sister has married a local man and converted to Sufism, and she encourages Julia to visit a Sufi sage in Algeria. While Julia works up to this journey, she and her girls await a never-arriving check from their long-removed father, sell rag dolls in the market, and take up with a charismatic street performer, Bilal.
Julia wants to live an exotic and authentic life with her kids, but is willfully deaf to their protests at being dragged along on her adventure. Bea, particularly, wants to go to school and keep to a regular routine, but Julia is unable to stay in once place, journeying with Bilal to his home village (where it becomes quite clear to both girls that Bilal has abandoned his wife), then taking up with a pair of wealthy expats. When Julia finally decides it’s time to make her pilgrimage to Algeria, the expats promise to keep Bea so that she can attend school meanwhile. Reluctantly, Julia leaves her eldest child, and sets off with Lucy.
Winslet’s Julia is a type-perfect illustration of a hippie true-believer, both selfish and loving, neglectful and caring. She worries constantly about her daughters’ safety, but she is unwilling to understand or admit that what she herself wants can be harmful to them. She is both Earth Mother and adolescent. Even if the acting weren’t so good, Hideous Kinky would be worth watching for atmosphere alone: the beautiful Moroccan setting, rich with desert colors, is lingeringly shot throughout.
