Florence Foster Jenkins
by Nicholas Martin
Qwerty Films
Not all summer movies are about blowing shit up.
This is a charming comedy-biography about a VERY rich woman who loved to sing and loved to sing for an audience… problem was she wasn’t very good at the singing part.
Meryl Streep swans in as Florence Foster Jenkins, who, with her common-law(ish) husband, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) puts on musical performances and tableaux vivants in 1940s New York. Florence has always had a love of music, and decides she wants to start singing again, and has Bayfield find her a pianist (Cosme McMoon, played by Simon Helberg). After a performance for a carefully curated audience who would not laugh at her, Florence goes ovaries to the wall and rents Carnegie Hall to sing for the troops.
The concern with a movie likes this is how much the butt of a joke Florence is. She honestly doesn’t seem to realize that she’s just not good at singing. She doesn’t have a sense of tempo or phrasing, and her notes and the notes on the page aren’t the same. She could be portrayed as just another wacky, eccentric rich old lady, but Meryl is better than that, and so is everyone else. Early on, Cosme is given a list of quirks he’s to be aware of (nothing pointy) and as the movie goes on, bits and pieces are given out that explain everything about who she is. Meryl understands how to use a backstory to inform her performance. Florence is a whole person in her hands.
Florence’s support network all understand that she isn’t good at singing (I’m not going to say that she can’t sing. She can sing the whole Queen of the Night aria. She just can’t, you know, do it WELL) but for their various reasons, they protect her from the world and keep her safe from criticism. Her vocal coach does it because she supports the Metropolitan Opera. Cosme first does it for money, then does it because he likes her and respects her unflagging enthusiasm. Bayfield does it because he loves her and wants her to be happy.
I listened to an interview with Meryl on Fresh Air, and she talked about the singing. She did it, she did it all, she did it all live (as opposed to recording and then lip-syncing during filming) and had to learn how to do it correctly before she could do it badly in the proper way. Also she sang the Queen of the Night aria like, five times in one day while they were shooting, which is ridiculous (according to Meryl) and she felt bad for the editor because she kept doing different things for each take. I would not be shocked if we saw Oscar Nomination Number 20 out of this movie.
The rest of the cast is, naturally, stellar. I don’t watch Big Bang Theory, so I didn’t have any sense of Simon Helberg as an actor, but as Cosme he was GREAT. Rebecca Ferguson and Nina Arianda have supporting roles (Arianda, especially, who I know from Hannibal, is brilliant). It’s a comedy-biography, and there’s a layer of farce involved that is handled delicately so it doesn’t cross into “this is too ridiculous for words” territory. (Also Meryl said that they toned down Florence’s actual costumes because they were so over the top no one would believe it.)
I would normally expect a move like this to be released closer to awards season, but having a non-typical summer movie (in a summer where there have been a LOT of disappointments) when you don’t have air conditioning in your apartment (AS A PURELY HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE) (ok, it’s not that hypothetical; it’s been very hot and I don’t have AC) is VERY nice.
This is good for people who like biopics that aren’t SUPER heavy and depressing, and who like theater, music (yes, really), performing, and living your best life, even when life has delivered you a mixed bag of blessings and messes. It’s a love story, and a complicated one. Whether the romantic pairing is Florence and Bayfield, or Florence and singing, I will leave as a exercise for the viewer.
Florence Foster Jenkins is in theaters now and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.
I really want to see this. Apparently, not only did Meryl do the singing live, but Helberg is a classically trained pianist and his playing was live to (attempt to) match hers. Just being on set must have been a treat.
I want to see this. NOW.
I saw this with my mom and though it’s not my usual thing, I thought it was very sweet & much funnier than I expected it to be. The audience was literally roaring with laughter at parts [the audience also skewed pretty elderly, so I don’t know if that means anything.] I particularly enjoyed Simon Helberg, though I also didn’t know him before. It was kind of refreshing after a dull movie summer.
My husband and I were the youngest people in the audience when we saw it (we’re in our mid-fifties). He was a little reluctant because he doesn’t like to watch people make fools of themselves, but agreed that her love of music and joy in performing transcended her awfulness. I made my son watch the preview and he was quite put out to learn how she was treated after the Carnegie Hall concert.
Loads of costume porn and gorgeous sets and a winning performance from Hugh Grant, whom I usually don’t care for, as well. A nice treat since so many movies this summer have been duds.
I just saw this yesterday, was looking for anything to watch at the theater and the only good things were at the indie theater. This movie was hilarious. A friend I was with was laughing so hard she started crying. I almost choked on my popcorn when The singing started. It’s a great movie…
I definitely want to catch this one. (And I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Florence was 10x the singer I am. I’m truly awful. And my grandmother was a real opera singer about a century ago. Sigh.)
They filmed part of this in the building where I work. There was much excitement when the ‘talent’ were in the building. By all accounts Meryl Streep is the nicest, most gracious, down to earth woman on the face of the earth, unsurprisingly, Hugh Grant is a d!ck.
The retro cars and costumes of the extras were awesome though.
Really enjoyed this movie – I laughed and I cried!
High Grant is a total revelation in this movie. It was a fun & touching flick & the AC was a real bonus!
Hugh Grant’s understated performance was what rooted this film for me.
They did a good job of what in reality is a complex and tragic story. I really enjoyed the movie. Jennings seems to have been a real patron of the arts and brought great music to NYC. Personally she seems to have been a sweet and generous person who was sincerely liked by many in the music world.
It’s hard to talk about Jennings’ singing without giving away some important moments in the movie. Lets just say that due to a long illness her nerves and sense of hearing might well have been responsible for her inability to understand her singing limitations rather than arrogance.
They did a good job of what in reality is a complex and tragic story. I really enjoyed the movie. Jeninks seems to have been a real patron of the arts and brought great music to NYC. Personally she seems to have been a sweet and generous person who was sincerely liked by many in the music world.
It’s hard to talk about Jennings’ singing without giving away some important moments in the movie. Lets just say that due to a long illness her nerves and sense of hearing might well have been responsible for her inability to understand her singing limitations rather than arrogance.
I read a story on this that my Mom sent me, from the WSJ culture supplement, and the creative crew involved sounds stellar. Helberg had some interesting things to say about how the accompanist had to accommodate Jenkins’ flaws and how he came to care enough about her to do his best to make her sound her best. And La Grande Streep was, as usual, very articulate about the character. I don’t know that we will see it in the theatre since we almost never do, but this is one I may purchase if they do background features; I would LOVE to get more of the history and how-we-did-it along with the movie.
I remember reading about Florence in a book called “Eccentrics.” According to the author, what sets eccentrics apart from other singular people is that eccentrics enjoy whatever it is that they do, from collecting the world’s largest collection of garden gnomes to walking around the world backwards. More power to them!
I saw this last night with my husband. I think I liked it more than he did, but we both appreciated the way that the film turned Florence from a joke into someone you could admire, because of her determination to live out a dream. Hugh Grant’s character was complex and not entirely sympathetic, but in the end he showed that he truly loved her.
Absolutely go and see this movie. My husband and I were the only occupants in the theater, and that allowed me to laugh hysterically and I needed that. It was also a moving love story between Hugh Grant’s character, Florence, and music. In the end Florence did give a lot of folks much needed pleasure through her music, either by financing music or her own singing that had people in stitches, also much needed distraction during a war. Meryl Streep is superb as Florence, as , surprisingly is Hugh Grant and the little piano player. Too bad, not many folks will appreciate this funny film.
When I first heard about this movie coming out I was so confused. I had already seen that story, but with different actors. After doing a little research I realized that I’d seen the French movie Marguerite, who is inspired by Foster Jenkins, but moved the story to Paris. It was ten years in the making, and the director was quite shocked to hear of a very similar Hollywood project.