[yasr_overall_rating]
The story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who dreamed of becoming an opera singer, despite having a terrible singing voice.
Based on the true story of the notoriously talentless singer Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) in early 20th century Manhattan, the movie is a warm-hearted celebration of single-minded amateurism over slick professionalism, and romantic fantasy over disappointing reality.
Director Steven Frears and his screenwriter Nicholas Martin focus on events in 1944. Jenkins (Meryl Streep) shares an unorthodox long-term marriage to St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), a hammy English stage actor who serves as her devoted manager and official chaperone, even though he lives discreetly in a separate apartment with his mistress, Kathleen (Rebecca Ferguson). As Bayfield mentions to McMoon, “It works.”
Shielded from cruel critics by the indulgent Bayfield, Jenkins builds up a cult reputation by giving private recitals to small members-only groups. But she finally risks public exposure by organizing her own sold-out show in Carnegie Hall hiring young pianist Cosmé McMoon (Simon Helberg of “The Big Bang Theory”) as her accompanist. The audience, swollen by hundreds of U.S. army servicemen recently returned from WWII, reacts with a mix of rowdy mockery and charitable good cheer. But the press reviews are inevitably savage, plunging the emotionally fragile Jenkins into a downward spiral.
It’s a situation that should make “Florence Foster Jenkins” a pathetic drama – or, at best, a mean comedy for our snarky age. But stars Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant make director Stephen Frears’s biopic something more. They make it a love story.
Part of that romance is Jenkins’ devotion to music. She truly adores it, even if it doesn’t love her back. Every note she tries to capture runs away in terror – making her chase after them all the harder.
Florence’s rehearsal scenes have a gently escalating ludicrousness about them that’s totally winning, and one sequence in which she ends up being grabbed from behind by her vocal coach (David Haig) and all but ridden into tune, is a snort-inducing comic vignette.
But even when the music deserts her, Grant’s St. Clair Banfield is always there. True, he’s a bit of a gigolo, a failed actor, he lives off Jenkins’ generosity and support. But he also supports her – keeping the critics at bay, carefully maintaining the fiction that she’s a great star. In a movie about awkward devotion, his is the real commitment.
It’s a pleasure seeing Grant in a great part again, playing the sort of almost-cad he’s best at. And Streep – who, in real life, can belt anything from Broadway to Bruce – is clearly having a ball singing badly.
It’s even more of a pleasure seeing Helberg as McMoon. We all expect greatness from Grant and Streep, but when Helberg completely captures the screen with the sheepish giggles, shy mannerisms, and adorable boyish charm of McMoon, my heart was lost to him.
There’s a deceptively masterful simplicity to Frears’ direction and the story’s telling. In this day and age of superhero face-offs, blockbuster special effects mayhem and vulgar displays of violence, we are reminded that a true love story needs no bells and whistles.
In theaters Friday, August 12th
