Verdict: 4/10
Genre: A fiction bordering biopic
Movie
Lead:
Nicole Kidman
Director:
Olivier Dahan
Supporting
cast:
Tim Roth, Madge Tivey-Faucon, Roger Ashton Griffiths, Paz Vega, Frank Langella,
Geraldine Somerville, Milo Ventimiglia & Robert Lindsay.
Movie
synopsis:
Grace of Monaco is a short chapter from French
History. It is the life of American Oscar Winning actress Grace Kelly after her
marriage with Prince Rainer III of Monaco; trying to focus on the part where the
country was in dispute with France due to evasion of Tax laws by the rich in
Monaco.
Butterfly Talkies trashes it, mainly for its
far- fetched & tasteless interpretation of a beautiful Queen’s life story.
Read
on:
Reviewing it I realized that the only
highlight for me was Prince Rainer III played by Tim Roth’s snap at his
highness, the royal Queen & the Grace of Monaco herself, Grace Kelly played
by Nicole Kidman: “Say nothing, everything you say has consequences!” This dialogue
lodged me into a guilty fit of giggles taking me back to memories of my recent
past where this dialogue fit in perfectly.
The second & the last highlight for me in
the film was Nicole’s French finishing school classes at Father Tucker’s behest
played by American Parish Priest Frank Langella for her to make the best French
Queen there was of the 1960s.
The entire stretch of four to five scenes
where Nicole learns to express her dialogues in the form of her facial expressions
as a queen; I must say is well performed by Nicole. And- That’s the only
limelight she manages to bag from the Cannes disaster. Her fiercely, obviously frigid
& unflattering cheek bone lines don’t leave enough room for much charm on
her to be the Queen. Charlize Theron with a much better preserved glow on her face
would have been better suited for the role.
This film cannot deserve a hit rating because
of sudden blues of inspiration of say about 10 minutes in totality. The
tasteless mixing of the broth is answerable for the remaining 93 minutes fiasco
of History of Monaco. Simply put, there’s no meat in the ‘Harvested’ glamour.
Apart from that, I felt the movie was an
extraordinary vision to make the biopic into a modern contemporary take on
Hollywood super star Grace Kelly gone terribly wrong in execution. This may be due
to the traditional ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’ kind of a scene with movie distributor
Harvey Weinstein adding his own limitations & barriers on the director’s vision.
Harvey for
instance, reports say wanted to paint a happy ‘American Ending’ picture making
Grace Kelly’s life look glamorous after her marriage to Prince Rainer III; which
people who know her history know that it wasn’t the case.
The part of Queen Grace winning Monaco with a
charming smile from the Monarch of France, Charles Di Gaulle; is dull & incompetent interpretation of
the Queen’s true fight for Monaco. More such preposterously
offensive screen play by Amel Arash powered by unapproved & unnecessary revelation
of Kingdom’s family secrets for the sake of suspense and drama, have made the
maker of ‘La Vie En Rose’ look like a movie shot squanderer with horrible editing
on the distributors’ part.
Honestly, the pre-promotional phases of the
film with Dahan & Harvey fighting over creative disputes garnered better
publicity in an anticipatory form. However, the after math is a terrible
display of egoistic team work.
Grace of Monaco opens with a Kelly quote, “The
idea of my life as a fairy tale is in itself a fairy tale”. Yes indeed, for Dahan
went overboard with your fairy tale Queen. He made it indigestible to the point
called “Movie Poisoning”.
The Royal family has condemned the film calling
it a farce. Prince Albert, the Queen’s son who is a confirmed visitor at Cannes
every year is known to be gravely disturbed by the way the movie has portrayed
his parent’s married life in a troubled light which is not true. This explained
his absence this year at the world’s most prominent film festival.
The
statement from the Prince's palace went on: "The Princely family does not
in any way wish to be associated with this film which reflects no reality and
regrets that its history has been misappropriated for commercial
purposes."
The narrative should have reflected the life of a
strong woman who stood up to her family’s rough times with poise & dignity.But instead it was misconstrued into a fantastical façade with lights & tiaras coupled
with stereo typical ‘scene from such movies’ like a couple of brooding men
crowding themselves in meaningless authority of a powerless dark room.
What could have been a serious biopic plumed
with wit & style turned out to be clips & pieces of shallow
interpretation for a kingdom’s fight to save its people from being overtaken by
France.
It seemed like the makers of the film wanted
to narrate a page 3 lifestyle of a Queen ending with a high school prom night
sort of a win, in this case winning a country with a smile from the French
Monarch, Charles Di Gualle over a fancy Red Cross dinner is unacceptable, crossing the line of respectable imagination.
What could have been a modern contemporary
take on Grace Kelly’s unspoken periodic turned out to be a posh Bollywood drama.
Did you know, YRF has co- produced the film? Maybe they had their own expectations
from the director along with Harvey. Sadly.
FYI: This movie is an offensive
take on a real life story. Keep calm & ignore.
Movie #reviewer,
Rokkomilla
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