Australian actresses seem to like playing European royals, but often make a hash of it. Last year it was Naomi Watts as Princess Diana, in a supposedly tragic biopic that unfortunately inspired jokes and posthumous dread. This week in the sunny Riviera, merely miles away from the picturesque and sometimes boring Monaco, we’ve had Nicole Kidman in the title role in Grace Of Monaco, the curtain-raiser of the 67th Cannes Film Festival. It’s a film that continues the tradition that, as critics and insiders speak of Cannes as the world’s most important movie gathering, the maxim almost always excludes the opening film.
Nicole Kidman as Princess Grace of Monaco.
Perched on its own cliff and cut off from the world, this glittering bonbon is tolerable, even amusing, with plenty of inexplicably dawdling close-up shots of Kidman’s face as she holds court against General De Gaulle, as royal underdog. In Cannes, however, the expectations are too high and the critical temperature too heated for self-important confectionery like this to pass, and at the press screening laughter was heard at certain points when, in fact, it should have been tearful chokes or sobs. Be patient though, as Thai viewers will get to judge it for themselves when the film opens here in late June.
In a nutshell, Her Serene Highness Princess of Monaco, formerly Grace Kelly, in the 1960s managed through her impeccable facial skin and radiant guile to save the tiny tax haven from being annexed by the colonial impulse of the bloodhound French president De Gaulle. In a story of political manoeuvrings, glamour diplomacy and a portrait of a woman at a crossroads, Grace Of Monaco is an odd, stale mix, with none of those threads exerting a principle pull. The film is also playing up the idea that, as her own fate and that of her husband’s country are unravelling, Grace the actress found herself in the biggest role of her life. When the film opens, we see Alfred Hitchcock approaching her to return to Hollywood to play the lead role in Marnie (in truth he just called her on the phone). Grace refuses, but the irony — milked with not all that much subtlety — is that in Monaco, as a princess and a mother, acting is all she needs in a real life plot that turns out to be not quite as fairytale as she first imagined it to be.
Speaking at a press conference in Cannes, Kidman said that to play Grace, she was “able to watch a lot of footage [showing the princess]... I can hear her voice and read a lot of things about her”. But her strategy wasn’t to “mimic” her but to find her essence. That’s the only possible approach, I believe, though playing a ghost is never easy, especially a beautiful and iconic ghost, and while Kidman’s Grace has the cinematic grace and regal charm, the inward-looking script and the general fluff doesn’t give her a complicated context to operate in. Monaco is bullied and in trouble, sure, and so are Grace and Rainier, the dream couple who’s finding out that no marriage is an everlasting dream. But all of those earth-shattering problems seem to exist inside a bubble, perhaps like Monaco is.
From the beginning, this film by Olivier Dahan states that it’s a “fictional story based on real events”, which is for the best, as you’re reminded from the outset that you’re not watching a skewered imagining of world history. The House of Grimaldi, however, wasn’t pleased with the depiction of events in the film and refused to attend the Cannes gala screening.
Dahan’s attempt to elevate this straight narrative drama into a Cannes-worthy slot involves a choice of dreamy, close-up cinematography, accentuating the “acting” life of Grace, which results in an increasingly jarring experience. The rest of the cast makes the most of what they’re given: this includes Tim Roth (at times nervous, at times short) as Prince Rainier, the ruler of the vulnerable principality who’s pulling every string to keep off the French harassment. We also have Parker Posey as the princess’ lady-in-waiting and Frank Langella as Grace’s sombre confidant.
In short, this disappointing film is a great opener — because Cannes is a splendid circus that juggles art and glamour, fantasy and reality, commerce and history. On the red carpet Kidman has given the festival a photogenic, paparazzi-friendly opening, and now we can get back to the dark room and hope for the movies that’ll keep the discussion going, like last year’s Blue Is The Warmest Colour, The Missing Picture, The Great Beauty, or Stranger By The Lake — all premiered at Cannes. Thank you Grace, now let the real movies begin.
For more reports from Cannes Film Festival, go to www.bangkokpost.com/lifestyle/film
Weekend buzz is building
The Palme d’Or will be announced on May 24, a whole week away, but the first weekend at the 67th edition of this influential cinefest will see a delicious battle of auteurs. Today, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep is playing — his is the longest film in the competition, at 190 minutes, and the Turkish director will be looking for a repeat of the success after his equally long and mesmerising Once Upon A Time In Anatolia was received positively here two years ago (Once Upon A Time In Anatolia was screened in Bangkok, so we hope the new film will be, too).
Tomorrow, Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent is playing. The young French director’s brand of feverish cinema is one of the most exciting in the line-up ruled by senior masters, and hopefully the film will find a way to Bangkok. Also tomorrow is Le Meraviglie (The Wonders), by Italian Alice Rohrwacher, another young director with a track record for the sublime.
Sunday will see two heavyweight American directors unveiling their new works: Tommy Lee Jones is back in Cannes as a director with The Homesman, a Western adventure about a man who transports three mentally ill women across the country. It stars Jones himself, as well as Hilary Swank and Meryl Streep; an Oscar buzz is already building, even at this early stage of the year. Also on Sunday, David Cronenberg’s Maps To The Stars is showing to the press. It stars Robert Pattinson, Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska in a story of a Hollywood family grappling with the end of an era. The last Cronenberg film Cosmopolis was released in Bangkok (and made little money), and hopefully this new work will find its way to our shores again.
