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.

Throughout "Becoming Astrid," August acquits herself brilliantly; the woman we come to know is a tangle of impulses and qualities, and feels vibrantly alive.

Though "Becoming Astrid" is unflinching in its depictions of Astrid's pain, it does not wallow. A shallower story would be rife with villains, but there are none here.

The director is able to show the adolescence of the author as an antecedent of what her work would be. [Full Review in Spanish