On the heels of the debacle at last month’s Cannes Film Festival, where Grace Of Monaco was dubbed “one of the worst opening films” of all time, the Nicole Kidman-starring cornball biopic has now arrived in Bangkok. The soft focus glitz follows the transformation of Grace Kelly — or the Princess of Monaco — from a cute little lamb into a gutsy tigress who defeats no less a character than Charles de Gaulle through her most sensational weapon — a charity ball.
Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly in a scene from Grace Of Monaco.
In truth, the whole thing is not that bad. It’s naive, sometimes ludicrous and mostly flimsy, but it’s not unwatchable if you put your mind in the context of historical melodrama and Barbie doll feminism. There must be a better way to salute Kelly’s real-life pluck and stature, but if this melt-in-your-mouth lollipop is all we can have, then we’ll have it.
One historical fact that the film conspicuously gets right is that the princess was taller than her regal husband, Prince Rainier III (Tim Roth). The rest, though not entirely inaccurate, smacks of conscious embellishment that plays up the princess’ role in saving the beleaguered Monaco from France’s colonial instinct in the mid-1950s.
While plotting to rescue her moody husband from De Gaulle’s bullying and largely ignoring her young children along the way, the American-born princess struggles to become the darling of her European citizens while pondering a call from Hollywood — Alfred Hitchcock (Roger Ashton-Griffiths in campy make-up) has come knocking, wanting Kelly to return briefly to Los Angeles to play the lead in his new film, Marnie. The proudest message that Grace Of Monaco makes sure we take home is not hard to decipher — playing the princess in an exotic princedom is the most challenging role in the life of poor Kelly.
That Kelly manages to outwit De Gaulle simply by organising a ritzy ball is a fitting climax to this fluffy macaron by French director Olivier Dahan (who did slightly better in the Edith Piaf picture La Vie En Rose). That her life is one of the most heartbreaking in celebrity lore doesn’t
register here.
The contest of whether Grace or Diana is the ultimate disgrace of biographical movies on European royalty, as played by Australian actresses (Naomi Watts was the Duchess of York last year), is a close race, but one that we hope will be wrapped up and forgotten once and for all.
