Grace of Monaco by Olivier Dahan (2014)
A review of the historical film Grace of Monaco, depicting Grace Kelly’s life as royalty.
Grace Kelly is an essential in American film history.
I always knew this movie existed, and that it was on my radar for quite a bit now, but I had been getting quite lazy with the movies I’m watching lately. I’ve been more of a Korean drama binge rather than a movie one, so my life has been consumed with cheesy romance and A+ aesthetics. I was lurking on my friend’s Hulu account when I saw that this movie had just been added, I was bored, and so I pressed play.
Grace Kelly is considered one of the biggest film stars of Hollywood’s Golden Era, but, at the age of twenty-six, she chose to walk away from it all and become the Princess of Monaco. She married into royalty and left behind her life in Hollywood, and it was in Monaco that she would have three children, navigate the life of marrying into the monarchy as a foreigner, and died tragically young in a car accident.
This is a biographical film of Kelly’s life in Monaco—we don’t get to see any snapshots of her life in Hollywood. I kind of like that in a way, because we know of Kelly on the screen and in Hitchcock films. The only thing we really know about her life in Monaco in regards to popular culture was how she died.
Now that this preamble is out of the way, let’s dig deep into the film.
Content / Cinematic Elements
As I stated before, this film is about Kelly’s life in Monaco. The drama driving this film and its plot forward is a crisis between Monaco and France, in which the French are trying to take the small country away from its monarchy. We see how the prince’s own sister betrays the family in the pursuit of power, how Grace’s and Rainer’s marriage is falling apart from the stress. In the opener of the film, we see how Alfred Hitchcock is trying to get Grace Kelly back onto the silver screen to star in his next big film, which she initially agrees with. There is so much friction created with this, and Grace is now stuck between her old life and her new one, forced to choose what she wants to incorporate into her life now.
This film is just one snapshot of time, at one little event in Monaco’s history. I’m honestly not quite sure how I feel about that? We see Kelly’s development as a character when she has to choose between her old and new life, as well as the betrayal and drama surrounding the family, but besides that I kind of just didn’t care about what was going on. I found myself bored at times, which isn’t ideal.
Nicole Kidman does a mediocre job in this film—I found her performance to be quite flat and lifeless at times. The costuming in this film was quite nice at times, especially when it came to the charity ball. Outside of the more lavish scenes, I think Ranier had the best costuming with his military-style jackets with the lapels hanging down from the upper portion.
My only other observation is lots of natural and harsh lighting at times. I wasn’t a fan of the coloring, especially at this one scene at the charity. Everything was in a yellow hue that was kind of distracting and not ideal.
The title of the film also is so misleading, because you’d think that this is a biography about Grace, not about a specific moment in history. But, alas, I figured that out way too late. I think a biography of Grace might’ve been more interesting to be honest.
I will give one positive: I liked Grace’s monologue at the charity banquet. I thought that was well-written, but the super close-up shot of her face as she’s delivering it is extremely off-putting. The monologue is good, but the acting and cinematic execution isn’t exactly up to par for the quality writing going on behind the scenes.
Overall Thoughts
I think if you’re into European history of the history of Monaco, this might be the film for you. If you’re looking for a Grace Kelly biopic, this is not for you. Grace is more of a character driving the plot forward and we see character development, but in the film she specifically leaves behind the Hollywood life. Another tangent is that I don’t think Nicole Kidman is a good Grace Kelly, but that’s a very opinionated statement that shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
