Twiggy at London Film Festival review: Sadie Frost captures why she was so groundbreaking

Twiggy by Sadie Frost, London Film Festival review and star rating: ★★★★☆

Posh ’90s party girl Sadie Frost has reimagined herself as a documentary maker. In 2022 she directed Quant, about iconic ’60s designer Mary Quant, and her 2024 gambit is about model turned singer, actor and M&S saviour Twiggy. Frost seems to have a penchant for celebrating working class heroes, and Twiggy is a touching homage to an incredible woman whose refreshing approach to her career was to take it day by day rather than to hatch some grand plan. At the end Frost asks her what she hopes her legacy might be and Twiggy – real name Lesley Hornby – shrugs. It’s the attitude that made the industry enamoured by her in the first place.

It makes you wonder why her star faded. Frost captures well Twiggy’s authenticity. How her early self-confidence and disinterest in the superficiality of stardom made her attractive to agents, particularly in America. Twiggy offered something fresh: she wasn’t trying to look the same as everybody else, and spoke openly about her working class background in an era where models were mostly aristocrats.

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Frost uses engrossing film footage capturing her journey from ’60s model to Hollywood actor and singer to, in her later years, M&S campaign face, helping “save” the chain from a sales dip. Frost has a knack for displaying her big warm grin; the model from Neasden, London, never cared to put on a sultry image, even when the sexism she faced from early partners and male photographers must have made her skin crawl.

London Film Festival: Twiggy is one of a handful of world premieres at this year’s festival alongside new Netflix IVF film Joy

Frost has enlisted all her A-List mates who all seem to share Frost’s fascination with how ordinary Twiggy is and how she cared little for obeying the rules. She didn’t mind being called sexless. When she touched down in America, struggling to leave the airport and department stores because of throngs of fans, she told one reporter of her success: “I dunno why it’s happened.” David Bailey banned her from mag front covers because she brought an agent to shoots. She did her own make-up, not wearing foundation or powder. Dustin Hoffman shares Frost’s obsession, celebrating her pithily: “She lives to be alive and not successful. And to connect. She’s rare.”

More of Hornby today (she is involved, starring alongside her partner, the actor Leigh Lawson) could have gone down well. Not just sound bites but chunkier segments of reflective interview time. But I suspect maybe she would have done what she always has: refuse to pontificate or analyse her own rise. She doesn’t do looking inward. She’d rather laugh, but not in a neat way, with those big guttural honks Dustin Hoffman does a great impression of. A warm picture of an incredible life.

The London Film Festival continues until 20 October and tickets are online

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