“The negative image is even worse due to the choice subscribed to him of a repulsive, ugly woman from the point of view of classic European and in particular Russian beauty,” read the report. “You can see in photographs her crooked teeth and the form of her face that makes her look like a rat.”

The fact that the actress playing Kshesinskaya, Michalina Olszanska, has a “satisfactory appearance” changes nothing, since most viewers will recall the real ballerina, the report said. (The panel also damned the choice of a German actor, Lars Eidinger, to play Nicholas, describing him as a “pornographic” star because he appeared naked in a recent Peter Greenaway movie.)

The director, Aleksei Y. Uchitel, is somewhat bewildered by the early criticism.

“This was a big surprise for me,” he said in an interview. “I never expected the film to provoke controversy even before it was out. My main concern is that they haven’t seen the movie yet, but they are already judging it.”

The director’s plea that people should wait to see the finished film before rendering judgment has been endorsed by the Ministry of Culture and various senior officials, including Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman.

But that has done little to douse the hostility from the Russian Orthodox Church and its adherents. Some want the movie banned, while the most extreme have threatened to torch movie theaters that show it.

The main objection from the church is that because Czar Nicholas II and his wife were canonized in 2000, the movie is an insult to the faithful, which is a crime in Russia.