After the Grace Kelly movie biography starring Nicole Kidman was released last year in the famous Cannes Film Festival (right next door to the Princess' home, Monaco), it was completely panned by critics and its release was pushed back a few times - until it landed in Lifetime, airing as a television movie in the United States.
The Grace Kelly movie, "Grace of Monaco," was meant to have a theater release all along but was basically deemed too bad for a theater release, and ended up in what's basically considered as the place where bad biopics happen, most recently having screened critically hated biographies like Aaliyah's.
According to 2paragraphs, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Kelly's oldest daughter, thought at the beginning that the Grace Kelly movie was supposed to be a comedy until realized it was "simply fiction," and the House of Grimaldi publicly criticized the film over being inaccurate and "needlessly glamorized."
According to Us Weekly, though, the Grace Kelly movie biography wasn't entirely bad, although it was definitely flawed enough to deserve being denied a theater release over Lifetime; the news outlet reports that the movie is "visually gorgeous," though also critiquing its historical inaccuracy.
The Grace Kelly movie deals with the blonde's very iconic transition from Hollywood Oscar-winning actress to Princess of a small European nation after marrying Prince Rainier of Monaco (played by Tim Roth in the film); the movie's major conflict is her indecision on whether to go back to Hollywood or support Rainier's fight against the Charles de Gaulle French government in a tax battle in the sixties, a situation that's dealt with very poorly in the screenplay.
The New York Times reports that the film also attempts to homage iconic director Alfred Hitchcock, who directed Kelly in three films in the 50s: "Rear Window," "To Catch a Thief" and "Dial M for Murder" - and the film claims she had wanted to also star in "Marnie" in the early 60s but Rainier didn't think it would be appropriate.
In any case, general consensus seems to be that the Grace Kelly movie is so bad it's actually good!
