Middle-aged, uneducated Séraphine (Moreau) works as a housekeeper in rural France, occupying herself with menial chores. But she also paints, turning for inspiration to the outdoors, using dirt, oil, even animal blood to create her art. When German art critic Wilhelm Uhde (Tukur) chances to visit and lays eyes on Séraphine's vibrant, unusual paintings, he's convinced she is gifted, and begins working to secure a space for her paintings in the Parisian salons he frequents and curates.

"Séraphine”" is a brilliant, moving, and incredibly absorbing biopic about a little-known modern primitive” painter whose emergence from toil and obscurity is tainted by war and hints of mental disturbance. Moreau is astonishing as the quiet, introverted, meditative artist; Provost evokes her spiritual connection with nature with masterful subtlety and a genuine sympathy for her rapturous, if uneven, states of mind. When Uhde vanishes from her life as suddenly as he appears, Séraphine” takes on a tragic cast, highlighting the deleterious effects that money and fame exert on her creative powers.