FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS MOVIE MOVIE

The result is at once a work of efficient charm and, to those of us who treasured Frears in his more acerbic phase, a mild disappointment. Though the film as a whole is less raucous than Agnes, it obeys her instructions, bestowing benign approval on its subject. That is certainly the view of Agnes (Nina Arianda), the wife of a rich meathead, who springs to her feet at the concert, rebukes the crowd for jeering, and whips up a storm of applause. Clair’s report that Florence has “sold out faster than Sinatra,” because her demeanor, like her décor, belongs to an earlier age.) If Florence has remained a cult, it is thanks to her bravado in plowing ahead, regardless of her faults. (You are taken aback by the Second World War uniforms, and by St. Why, he asks himself, is nobody laughing?īelieve it or not, this did indeed take place, on October 25, 1944: a holy day in the annals of ineptitude. (You can imagine him in silent pictures, as a hopeful stooge.) When Florence finally lets rip, what Frears attends to is not just the noise that she creates, reminiscent of a hyena giving birth, but the awestruck expression on Cosmé’s face.

Helberg has the long sad mug of a mime and the body of a boy instead of strolling, he seems to hover along, with his hands held stiffly by his side. Offered a wage of ludicrous generosity, he leaves Florence’s apartment, in Manhattan, with a dizzy grin on his face, and the camera, savoring the moment, watches him drift down the street.

FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS MOVIE MOVIE

Before Florence can start her glass-shattering routine, she requires an accompanist, and the movie pauses to consider Cosmé McMoon (Simon Helberg), a reedy young pianist who applies for the job. Notice how he delays the first caterwaul, like a maker of war films who waits to unleash the opening boom of artillery. Florence wants to sing.įrears, whose slyness has deepened with the years, is not averse to teasing. All goes well until, one evening, an old need rears its head again. His earthly task is to serve the needs of his wife, who inherited money and, with it, a plush sense of entitlement.

In any case, he has found a higher calling. Clair claims to be “free from the tyranny of ambition,” and you can see his point. To realize that one is second-rate can be an epiphany of sorts, or, at least, an immense relief.

The most touching thing is that he doesn’t seem to mind. His delivery is, let us say, more impassioned than convincing, and we are instantly aware that here is someone who has fallen short. Resplendent in white tie and tails, he recites a speech from “Hamlet,” for the benefit of guests at a New York soirée. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), who was once an actor and likes to keep his hand in. The first person we meet is not the heroine but her husband, St. When she declares that “music has been, and is, my life,” you believe her. On the contrary, Streep is right there, solidly invested in the folly of Florence’s dreams. Yet her performance is the most successful of the three not once do you feel that she knows better than Florence-that the leading lady is looking down on her creation, as it were, with an arch of the eyebrow or a taunting glint in the eye. In both cases, sheer dramatic skill threatened to overwhelm the facts of the character, and you half-expect Streep to follow suit. Seven years earlier, in Frears’s “The Queen,” Helen Mirren took the part of Elizabeth II and lent it a musing reflectiveness that, however winning, seemed slightly at odds with the dutiful pragmatist, braced by common sense, who occupies the British throne. The tale was astutely told, though it couldn’t avoid a murmur of condescension. Think of “Philomena” (2013), in which Judi Dench played a simple soul on a quest for her long-lost son. If you want to see real-life women of a certain age incarnated by the most formidable actresses, then Frears is your man. There is something of a pattern here, and a risk. Who better to play the incompetent Florence than someone whose plenitude of gifts has been an article of faith for almost forty years? “Florence Foster Jenkins,” written by Nicholas Martin and directed by Stephen Frears, stars Meryl Streep in the title role.

Never has ignorance been such cloudless bliss her self-delusion, buoyed by those about her, amounted to a kind of genius, and the story of that unknowing has now inspired a bio-pic. As a singer, she could not hit a note, yet somehow she touched a chord-murdering tune after tune, and drawing a legion of fans to the scene of the crime. The defining talent of Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944) was that she had no talent.

Florence foster jenkins movie