Florence Foster Jenkins

Grade: B-

Director Stephen Frears (Philomena, High Fidelity, The Grifters, Dangerous Liasons) has put together a mildly cute and charming movie with Florence Foster Jenkins. The title character is a very wealthy club/theater owner in her 70s who suddenly gets the aspiration to be a classical/opera singer and put on concerts. The catch is: she has a terrible singing voice, and for some reason, literally nobody levels with her and tells her how bad she is. Her voice teacher is no help; he is the consummate “yes” man, always telling her she’s never sounded better (technically the truth, I guess). She never catches wind of any bad reviews of her performances, because her husband buys out every copy of any newspaper she might appear in. Unlikely he’d be able to do this, even in the 1940s. And miraculously, she is somehow able to book studio time, get on the radio, and even perform at Carnegie Hall. Obviously, we have several problems with credibility here, so imagine my surprise when I found out at the end that this is based on a true story. Truth sometimes really is stranger than fiction.

What makes this film work is the trio of lead performances. Meryl Streep is of course invaluable as Florence. We know she is a strong vocalist, from Into the Woods and Postcards from the Edge. It takes skill to sing so badly, but she made me laugh and cringe. As her husband, Hugh Grant is smooth and confident on the outside, and panicky on the inside, like most of the characters in a farce. The Big Bang Theory’s Simon Helberg shines as Florence’s newly hired accompanist. To my eyes and ears, he appeared to be playing the piano for real, and it was impressive.

Two lines toward the end struck me with their poignancy. When Florence asks her husband if everybody was laughing at her the whole time, he responds with “I was never laughing at you. Yours is the truest voice I’ve ever heard.” She later says “People may say I couldn’t sing, but no one can ever say I DIDN’T sing.” Maybe that was the point.
Grade: B-