I can't believe so many people have given this movie any stars. It's both ridiculous and inept. So, where to begin?
The idea that France would annex Monaco is treated with the world-shaking importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's a spat about taxes. Hardly earth-shaking. Another crisis is whether Grace will return to Hollywood, beckoned by Hitchcock, to star in "Marnie." That movie was also a mess with Tippi Hedren and is certainly on the bottom of the Hitchcock oeuvre, alongside "Topaz". It would have been no better with Grace Kelly. The script meanders about with one poorly conceived scene after the next. None, even vaguely plausible. Do you think that people went around calling Rainier "Ray" and Grace "Gracie"? I think not.
As for Nicole Kidman, not for one minute does she look like Grace Kelly - or even seem to try. Kidman has red hair when Grace Kelly was one of the world's great blonds. Didn't anybody care? In addition, Kidman's face is as waxy as a polished dance floor. In endless, painful close-ups, Kidman looks like an ad for what can go wrong with too much Botox. She makes no effort to convey the famous Kelly, breathy speech pattern. And, while there are some beautiful gowns, her hair is simply unlike the way Princess Grace wore her hair. Real jewels from Cartier - with a nice product placement leaving the Paris store - can't make up for this plastic performance.
Tim Roth doesn't look like Rainier. Neither do the Onassis or Callas stand-ins. But why bother?
This is simply an insult to Monaco, to the memory of Le Princesse Grace, the craft of screen writing and the art of film making. This was jeered at its opening of the Cannes Film Festival. Rightfully so.
The idea that France would annex Monaco is treated with the world-shaking importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's a spat about taxes. Hardly earth-shaking. Another crisis is whether Grace will return to Hollywood, beckoned by Hitchcock, to star in "Marnie." That movie was also a mess with Tippi Hedren and is certainly on the bottom of the Hitchcock oeuvre, alongside "Topaz". It would have been no better with Grace Kelly. The script meanders about with one poorly conceived scene after the next. None, even vaguely plausible. Do you think that people went around calling Rainier "Ray" and Grace "Gracie"? I think not.
As for Nicole Kidman, not for one minute does she look like Grace Kelly - or even seem to try. Kidman has red hair when Grace Kelly was one of the world's great blonds. Didn't anybody care? In addition, Kidman's face is as waxy as a polished dance floor. In endless, painful close-ups, Kidman looks like an ad for what can go wrong with too much Botox. She makes no effort to convey the famous Kelly, breathy speech pattern. And, while there are some beautiful gowns, her hair is simply unlike the way Princess Grace wore her hair. Real jewels from Cartier - with a nice product placement leaving the Paris store - can't make up for this plastic performance.
Tim Roth doesn't look like Rainier. Neither do the Onassis or Callas stand-ins. But why bother?
This is simply an insult to Monaco, to the memory of Le Princesse Grace, the craft of screen writing and the art of film making. This was jeered at its opening of the Cannes Film Festival. Rightfully so.