 She turned down offers to star in "Shakespeare in Love" (1998) and "Anna and the King" (1999) to do the film.Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Esther Freud, "Hideous Kinky" tells the story of a single British mother yearning for a new life in 1970s Morocco.Writing for "The New York Times", the critic Janet Maslin commended Winslet's decision to follow-up "Titanic" with such an offbeat project, and took note of how well she had captured her character's "obliviousness and optimism".