Grace of Monaco is focused on the personal story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly during a dispute between Monaco's Prince Rainier III, and France's Charles De Gaulle over tax laws in the early 1960s, her crisis of marriage and identity as well as her considering a return to Hollywood to film Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie.
Little is left to our imagination or intelligence as characters spout facts and exposition and we're treated to a parade of familiar historical figures in distracting smaller roles.
Uninspiring from its first frame to its last, Grace of Monaco is a piece of hagiographic fluff that cobbles together tropes from other recent biopics of famous women.
Grace Kelly's post-Hollywood life may not have been the fairy tale some thought it to be, but you wouldn't know it from director Olivier Dahan's cornball melodrama.
There must be a better way to salute Kelly's real-life pluck and stature, but if this melt-in-your-mouth lollipop is all we can have, then we'll have it.
Kidman seemed a natural choice to play Kelly. She manages to soar in several scenes. Hampered by the subpar material, she seems utterly lost, unable to master what could have been the role of her career.
