WHATA FALL FROMGRACE!
A Hollywood goddess with racy love life becomes a princess. How could it fail? Oh, Nicole, if only you’d read the script...
effect. Because that’s the real problem with
Grace Of Monaco: despite one or two decent supporting performances and a couple of semi-effective scenes, it’s just extraordinarily boring.
It begins in Monaco in 1962, when Grace and Prince Rainier have been married for six years and just as Alfred Hitchcock – who had cast Kelly in Dial M For Murder,
Rear Window and To Catch A Thief – has arrived in the principality hoping to persuade his blonde muse to come out of unofficial semi-retirement and star in his new film, Marnie.
Grace, who is growing bored with her privileged life, is tempted – very tempted – but when the news of her acceptance is released prematurely, she faces a backlash from local people who fear their Hollywood princess is deserting them.
At the same time, Prince Rainier attempts to secure the financial future of Monaco – largely by turning it into a tax haven – which earns him the ire of the French President, Charles de Gaulle, who issues an ultimatum.
Not only must Monaco residents pay the same rate of tax as those living in France, they must also pay it to the French government. Monaco, umpteen centuries of proud independence behind it, is, in effect, to be annexed. Unless, of course, a beautiful American actress can somehow be persuaded to come to its aid.
It’s a complicated issue (although my sympathies are with de Gaulle) and Grace
Of Monaco is one of those films where everyone, when they’re not introducing themselves to each other – ‘Have you met Maria Callas?’ – spends a lot of time explaining it to each other, often in a multiplicity of accents that may be authentic but are certainly off-putting.
There are some off-putting performances too. Notably from a woefully miscast Tim Roth as Prince Rainier, who looks more like a moustachioed suburban bank manager than European royalty, and from Parker Posey. She wrestles with an absolute pig of a part (that of a sinister palace aide called Madge who is harbouring a dark secret) and loses.
The reliably classy pairing of Frank Langella, as Grace’s priest and adviser, and Derek Jacobi, as the count who begins to teach her Monegasque history, courtly etiquette and, for some reason, acting, fare rather better.
But Grace Of Monaco is a film fighting a losing battle. Amel has chosen the wrong story, Dahan delivers wooden dialogue and jarring editing, and the climactic scene, in which Grace makes a vital, principality-saving speech, is preposterous.