Grace of Monaco has had some serious highs and lows, just like its central figure Grace Kelly. But as it approaches its world premiere at the illustrious Cannes Film Festival, the biopic about the movie star turned princess has finally unveiled a meaty trailer that gives a sense of its scale as well as its central drama.
Penned by Erased scribe Arash Amel, Grace of Monaco focuses on what Grace Kelly's life was like after she left the spotlight and stardom of Hollywood and stepped into the politics of Monaco by marrying Prince Ranier III. The film picks up in 1962. Film roles in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, Dial M for Murder and To Catch A Thief were long behind her. She and Ranier have been married for six years. But Kelly hasn't made a seamless transition from the mansions of Hollywood to castles of Monaco, and struggles to reconcile who she was with who her husband believes she must become.
We first got a teaser trailer of the film last fall, but as you can see below, it was pretty scant on content:
This project first made headlines in October of 2011, when Amel's spec script was purchased by producer Pierre-Ange Le Pogam. By January of 2012, Oliver Dahan was attached to helm, and with him brought high expectations as his previous biopic about Edith Piaf, La Vie En Rose, became a two-time Oscar-winner. But who would play the iconic Kelly? Within a few short months, producers had lined up Kidman, and by year's end she was joined by Paz Vega, Tim Roth, Parker Posey, and Derek Jacobi.
The film's first sign of trouble came when Kelly's children, Prince of Monaco Albert II, Princess Stephanie of Monaco, and Princess Caroline of Hanover, stepped forward to denounce Grace of Monaco as "pure fiction." But these claims didn't bother The Weinstein Company. They bought distribution rights thereby sparking early Oscar talk. These flames were fanned when TWC selected a release date of December 27th, 2013 for the biopic. Of course that didn't come to pass.
It was an ominous sign when TWC bumped Grace of Monaco's release from December of 2013 to eventually of 2014. The move was said to favor commercial success over awards season victories, but it spurred speculation that the finished product just wasn't good enough to compete in Oscar season. The situation got more dramatic last October, when Dahan called out Harvey Weinstein, confessing the two were fighting over the film's final cut. The director even went so far as to accuse Weinstein of attempting to blackmail him into accepting Weinstein's cut. But then the clouds cleared over the holiday, and Grace of Monaco was announced as part of the Cannes line-up.
It's currently unclear whose cut will screen there. But here's hoping the movie is at least half as dramatic as its making has been.
