I decided
to see this one (again on a plane) because I was rather bemused by the overall
“mediocre” reviews of it. It was set as an extravaganza after all, opening the
Cannes Film Festival no less, a clearly opulent, highly visual film about a
modern fairy tale; the story of Grace Kelly, who left the glamour of Tinsel
town to be the Princess of Monaco.
However,
the fairy tale, we quickly learn, is not all it seems. Grace misses Hollywood
and her old world, Rainier ( Tim
Roth) is distant and increasingly stressed about Monaco’s increasingly tense
relationship with De Gaule era France and no matter how hard Grace tries, she
can’t seem to get it right, every single thing she says and does seems to be
wrong. When Hitchcock offers her the leading part in his latest film, Marnie,
Grace reaches crisis point. She has the perfect opportunity to return to the
stage – but with a crisis brewing in Monaco and her new family to consider…
Which way will Grace turn?
I mean we
have the advantage of hindsight here, we all know she stayed with Rainier,
never acted again and was her Serene Highness the Princess of Monaco for the
rest of her life. And herein lies the problem with this film. There is no real
crisis, because most, if not all of us know what Grace decided to do. The
interest of the film lies – or would lie – in portraying her psychological
process in getting there. It offers an interesting opportunity to look into the
mind of a woman forced to choose between her career and her family. What we end
up with, between Grace’s wise father figure Father Tucker, the elocution
lessons and the French lessons (complete with the now rather stale parody of
Americans being unable to pronounce foreign languages) something akin to the
Princess Diaries, or, you know, all those tweenage films about regular girls
learning to be princesses. And on the other hand, I mean come on. The dilemma
is between being a famous actress or an actual princess. It’s not exactly an
easy dilemma to sympathize with.
The second
point, which I actually read in another review is that the same is valid for
the Monaco deal. It is, of course, absolutely tragic for any country to lose
its sovereignty but at the end of the day, in real terms, they would simply
become French citizens and lose some tax privileges. It’s bad. But it’s not
exactly being put to the sword either. And just as it was in the case of
Grace’s story, we actually know what happened. Monaco still exists. The end. In
fact the whole “danger” is largely economic, the long discussions (and the
explanations thereof, as given to Grace who plays the role of the Everyman) are
basically a lot of men in tuxedos round a board room table. Again, very hard to
sympathize with.
In both
crises typical Hollywood tricks are used to heighten emotion, extreme close ups
of faces (and eyes and mouths quite a few times), tense music, suitable
sequences of both Nicole Kidman and Tim Roth looking tortured…. But in
the end, the moment you take a step back, there is no real “crisis” there, not
for us. I would have found a much more deeply psychological behind the scenes
angle a lot more interesting.
It’s a
shame really, because there is a really
good opportunity there, something akin to what we discussed concerning CallasForever – an actress, playing an actress, playing a part. Or rather learning to
play a part. I mean we do get hints at that, I rather liked the vignettes of
Grace Kelly rehearsing Marnie in front of her bedroom mirror. I do wonder how
Kidman approached that; did she do it the way she herself would play Marnie or
try and figure out how Grace Kelly would do it? Both maybe? But I mean even
that is marred slightly, there comes a moment when Father Tucker holds Grace’s
hands earnestly and says – as deep down we knew he would : “Grace, learning to
be the Princes is the role of a lifetime”.
I mean
yeah, the film is beautiful, opulent… But for all that, it falls short on the way
the story is told. I know the whole idea is the “backstory” of a typical fairy
tale being exposed, but if the fairy tale is typical, this doesn’t mean the way
we tell it has to be as well… So I’m afraid I have to say yes, I totally see
why so many people just turned around and said it was just… “Meh”… I feel sadly
obliged to join their ranks…
Spot on. The film did turn out to be a bit of a flop.
YanıtlaSil