Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant in Florence Foster Jenkins.
Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant in Florence Foster Jenkins.
If you want to be as delighted as I was by Florence Foster Jenkins, skip this review.
So maybe the rest of you aren't planning to see this period piece about an aspiring opera singer starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. Pity. Because the movie is more than another WorldWar II-era film about New York City aristocracy; it's about love, joy and connecting through music. And it's hilarious.
Director Stephen Frears' biopic is based on the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a socialite whose partner/manager is self-proclaimed "eminent actor and monologist," St Clair Bayfield (played by Hugh Grant). Grant seems at first typecast as cad, since in addition to managing Jenkins' affairs, he's also living with his girlfriend.
However, Bayfield's actions show how he felt about the woman he professed to love, as he struggles to shield Jenkins from "mockers and scoffers".
Early on Jenkins says, "Music is my life. Music matters." The arts patron weeps during a performance by soprano Lily Pons, marvelling about the "profound communion" the diva has shared with the audience. Florence Foster Jenkins' ambition is to share in that too.
She enlists a respected vocal coach for singing lessons and hires a bookish young pianist, Cosmé McMoon (The Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg), to accompany her. What emerges from Jenkins' mouth sounds like a cross between a dying squeaky toy and a macaw being strangled.
I was surprised how much I laughed during this movie - not just at Florence's singing, but at the absurdity of her quest to perform technically-demanding music.
Florence records a 78rpm album, which, in the days before auto tune, emerges as a cacophony of cats mewling, fighting and screeching (Jenkins singing).
Her dream, to sing in Carnegie Hall, is made possible by Jenkins' money, not musical ability. She funds her own concert in 1944.
Florence Foster Jenkins is for anyone who has ever struggled through music lessons before finding joy in notes and rhythm. As Florence said, "People may say I couldn't sing, but no one can say I didn't sing."
