Grace of Monaco slammed at Cannes Film Festival

"It's an easy watch, lush, stylish... and is often side-splittingly funny,"Empire's Phil de Semlyen said. "The trouble is, it's not actually meant to be a comedy." Laughter was heard during a press screening on Wednesday morning. A gala premiere will take place later, BBC News reports. Set in the 1960s, Olivier Dahan's film focuses on Grace Kelly's early years as a princess when she was tempted to return to Hollywood by an offer from Alfred Hitchcock. Tim Roth plays her husband, Prince Rainier III, with Robert Lindsay, Spain's Paz Vega and Sir Derek Jacobi filling other roles. In her review, Screen Daily's Fionnuala Halligan described the film as "puzzlingly misjudged... a minor royal Euro-pudding which lands awkwardly in sub-Roman Holiday territory". "As Grace Kelly, the retired Hollywood movie star struggling to find meaning in her life as Monaco's monarch, Kidman valiantly strains for the right notes. "But the project... seems a poor judgment call, despite the presence of La Vie en Rose's Dahan at the helm." Those sentiments were echoed by the Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Dalton, who called the film "a stiff, stagey, thuddingly earnest affair which has generated far more drama off screen than on". "Is it even possible to make a boring film out of this rich, juicy, gossipy material? It would seem so," he said. "Indeed, it is almost perversely impressive how Dahan misses almost every target and squanders almost every opportunity." The film has been criticised by the royal family of Monaco, with Princess Stephanie of Monaco calling the film about her parents inaccurate. At a press conference for the film on Wednesday, Kidman addressed the royal family's displeasure at the project. "Obviously I feel sad because the film has no malice towards the family, particularly Grace and Rainier," she told reporters. To read more