Review of Grace of Monaco (2014) by Samaila A — 11 Jun 2014

"She will not do this to me!".

Basing something on true events can be a problematic and fickle thing. How much do you base in reality? How far do you deviate from the actual events? and whether events are important enough to be included. I don't envy the writers of these films nor the directors. But when a film is bad it's bad whether its true to the events or not - It has to be interesting. And this film has that issue in spades.

Taking on the genuinely interesting situation of 'Grace Kelly' (Nicole Kidman), her marriage towards the Prince Rainier of Monaco (Tim Roth) as well as the problems Monaco faced from France. On the face of it there's a lot of good things, previously unknown things that could be explored. And while you'd like some artistic license keeping it mostly true should (in my opinion) be the goal. This film as far as I can tell does not, it works more like a best of...moments with plenty of exaggeration of Kelly's abilities. It's a montage of scenes cut together without much thought to pacing - It's biggest flaw. It flips through the days/months as though they're panicking to get to something more juicy. At times its tone is laughably lose and cheesy and one point it's a spy mystery. Not a bad thing in principle if it happened but handled with a shrug and left for a bit only to be picked with a - so this happened I guess. The story is as empty and lifeless as they come. It's a if someone's gone of it with the boring comb - numbing anything with a pulse. Her playful side and her children are relegated to two scenes that have the most life in them - all 3 minutes of them.

'Kidman' does 'fine' as 'Kelly' but she's always going to be facing an uphill battle with someone so wildly regarded as a not just a great actress but a great person. She isn't close to as bad as some have said and at times - sorry for the pun - shows some grace in the role. The rest of the cast however are less convincing 'Tim Roth' displays a moustache that looks like it came out of a cracker and everyone seems to be as eloquently English as possible despite being French. There's too many things wrong here its not an easy feat. There's an odd use of nods to filming styles of the 50s - which is fine as a whole but they're random. At one point when 'Grace' is driving a car its clearly employing a screen background. Again, consistency there is none when a film is this erratic even when it displays something good there's something there to ruin it. Whether its a bizarre close-up of Kelly's eyes or a laughable comedic-like scene there's always something there to confuse.

There are worse films than this - after all this isn't 'I,Frankenstein' bad but its most likely going to be the worst of the year. It's interesting premise is wasted on a vapid empty story that has all teh grace of a rock. Directed with seemingly random styles and moving from scene to scene with barely any thought to pacing - I can't recommend this. And I certainly would actively discourage fans of 'Grace Kelly' from watching this. I could point out some highlights but at this point its like blowing in a hurricane. Although if you want to see Monaco and you can't pay I guess this will do.