The major news with “Florence Foster Jenkins,” directed by Stephen Frears and based on a true story that climaxed during the 1940s, is that Meryl Streep gives an especially memorable performance that should be a sure-fire award nomination bet. Ms. Jenkins, a wealthy socialite who loved music, became a legendary laughing stock when she insisted on giving concerts even though her singing was patently atrocious, although she thought she was good, and a recording that she made became a collector’s item.
What Streep manages to do is both make us laugh, as do concert audience members, yet also feel for her with respect to her passion for singing no matter how off key and for the basically tragic figure she became. One can laugh along with the audience depicted at the nervy Carnegie Hall concert that she gave with disastrous effects, yet also sympathize with her, thanks to what Streep pulls off in her savvy portrayal. In addition, we get the details of Jenkins being stricken with syphilis, contracted from her husband in her early marriage. It is probably what caused her death soon after her Carnegie Hall fiasco.
A favorite film of mine released earlier in the year is “Marguerite,” a French import that took the American story and imaginatively transposed it to France, with the marvelous Catherine Frot playing the lead. (See review via Search.) There is no sense in comparing Frot and Streep. Each is vastly different and so are the milieus in which they are depicted.
The French version is much more sophisticated in its approach. The Frears film with Streep becomes too schmaltzy. Yet this is really an American and New York story, and therefore “Florence Foster Jenkins” has the greater authenticity in that respect.
Frears has also assembled an excellent cast, with Hugh Grant particularly good as Jenkins’s companion, St. Claire Bayfield, shown here to love and care for Jenkins even though he is involved with a mistress. He is protective of Florence, paying off critics to ignore her ineptitude, trying to hide a devastating New York Post pan from her and in general looking after her with devotion.
A scene stealer is Simon Helberg as Cosmé McMoon, Jenkins’s pianist, whose reaction when he first hears her hit the false notes is hilarious. In fact, much laughter is mined from a whole series of facial reactions on the part of audience members.
Streep reportedly does her own singing and had to be coached to sing so badly. That in itself is an art form—accurately striking the wrong notes, especially the high ones, when performing renowned works. The actress is terrific on all counts as she deftly bridges comedy and pathos.
More people in this country will see “Florence Foster Jenkins” than will view “Marguerite.” That’s in the nature of the limits on foreign language imports. But what a double bill the two pictures would make! A Paramount release. Reviewed August 12, 2016.