“Naomi Watts set the bar high with last year’s Princess-Di disaster. But Nicole Kidman has outdone her: this Grace Kelly film, which kicks off Cannes 2014, is a breathtaking catastrophe.

It’s traditional for Cannes to start with something spectacular. This is certainly no exception. It is a film so awe-inspiringly wooden that it is basically a fire-risk. The cringe-factor is ionospherically high. A fleet of ambulances may have to be stationed outside the Palais to take tuxed audiences to hospital afterwards to have their toes uncurled under general anaesthetic.

(…)

The resulting film is like a 104-minute Chanel ad, only without the subtlety and depth. Princess Grace herself is played by Nicole Kidman, wafting around the Palace with dewy-eyed features and slightly parted lips which make her look like a grown-up Bambi after a couple of cocktails, suddenly remembering his mother’s violent death in the forest.

(…)

We stay with Kidman’s Grace, who is effectively confronted by a dilemma. Should she return to her selfish, shallow life in Hollywood or build a new shallow, selfish life in Monte Carlo? (…) And what of Prince Rainier himself, that fairy-tale prince for whom she gave it all up? He is played by Tim Roth, who gives a very cigarette-smoking, glasses-wearing, moustache-having performance. He is always leaning in his chair, leaning against door frames — looking through his glasses, and smoking. What is this remarkable head of state thinking about? As performed by Tim Roth, it looks like he is thinking about how much he regrets taking this appalling role, and how inadequate he considers his fee, whatever it is.”


(Peter Bradshaw im Guardian über “Grace Of Monaco”, den Eröffnungsfilm des Filmfestivals in Cannes)


Andere Kritiker stimmen zu, so Stephen Dalton im Hollywood Reporter:

“It is even possible to make a boring film out of this rich, juicy, gossipy material? It would seem so. Indeed, it is almost perversely impressive how Dahan misses almost every target and squanders almost every opportunity. Because Grace of Monaco is a stiff, stagey, thuddingly earnest affair. (…) Even fans of glitzy Eurotrash royalty porn will be disappointed, as Dahan methodically avoids camp excess and salacious speculation in a misguided bid to whitewash Kelly as a self-sacrificing People’s Princess in the Lady Diana mold. (…) Tim Roth never convinces as Rainier, chain-smoking through every scene with a pained frown suggesting mild constipation. (…) In a convoluted twist, the script tries to portray Kelly’s reluctant rejection of Hitchcock’s offer to make her Hollywood comeback in Marnie as a crucial factor in saving Monaco from French invasion. (…) Preposterous nonsense. (…) Ultimately, Kelly deploys her acting skills to charm de Gaulle himself with a rousing speech that paints plucky little Monaco as a magic kingdom standing up for truth, justice and beauty in a world of bullies. Given this tiny tax haven’s long history as a magnet for playboy gamblers, shady oligarchs and money launderers, this comically absurd climax comes perilously close to the “pussies, dicks and assholes” speech at the end of Team America: World Police. (…) Indeed, the Shrek movies deconstruct fairy-tale conventions with much more depth and wit than this dreary parade of lifeless celebrity waxworks. The real problem here is not the shameless blurring of fact and fiction, but how unforgivably dull it all seems.”

Weiterlesen:
* Schmähkritik über den Film “Diana”


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