Sun shines on Cannes but not on ‘Grace of Monaco’

The allure of superstar Nicole Kidman was not enough to salvage "Grace of Monaco" from the scathing wrath of critics as the movie opened the Cannes Film Festival.

Critics who got a sneak preview made no secret of their contempt.

“The cringe-factor is ionospherically high,” The Guardian film maestro Peter Bradshaw wrote.

“A fleet of ambulances may have to be stationed outside the Palais to take tuxed audiences to hospital afterwards to have their toes uncurled under general anaesthetic.”

The princely family furiously disavowed a film they say bears no resemblance to reality.

Rather than illustrate her life as whole, the movie focuses on a period of high tensions between the tiny state on a rock and France in 1962 that prompted Princess Grace to turn down an offer by Alfred Hitchcock to return to her beloved acting.

Kidman portrays an unhappy Grace who sleeps in a separate bedroom to Prince Rainier, even contemplating divorce before rising to the challenge of being a princess and helping her lost husband solve the political crisis with France.

Kidman, Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron and Chiara Mastroianni were just some of the big names walking the Cannes red carpet last night under a clear, sunny sky as the 12-day film fest officially got going in the glamorous Riviera resort.

Ryan Gosling, David Cronenberg, Sophia Loren and jury head Jane Campion are also set to make an appearance during the 67th Cannes Film Festival, where directorial big guns will go head-to-head in a year of comebacks, swansongs and star debuts.

Describing the controversy as “awkward“, Kidman sought to reassure the family that the film bore no “malice” towards them or towards Grace and Rainier, played by Tim Roth.