Florence Foster Jenkins catches up with the titular character in 1944. Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) is an elderly New York heiress and socialite with a love for music. She is married to St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), a failed actor who doubles as her manager, encouraging her through her artistic pursuits. Florence believes herself to be a talented singer, and no one around her seems to be disagreeing. The truth is that she has only sung for extremely sympathetic audiences, and Bayfield is doing everything in his power to protect Florence from any sort of public mockery. But protecting her becomes more difficult as her enthusiasm for singing for the public grows.
There is some measure of debate in the real world about how much Florence Foster Jenkins knew about how people were reacting to her singing. The film is not nearly as equivocal. It presents her as a woman living in a bubble, surrounded by people willing to bend over backwards to protect her from anybody who might say anything different. And through the film does offers glimpses at the deeper human within, it seems content to stay on that admittedly entertaining surface.
The film invests much more in the character of St. Clair Bayfield. The film paints a fascinating portrait of a man clearly taking advantage of his benefactor, and yet also undeniably devoted to her. This becomes the crux of the picture. The real arc of this film isn’t based on anything that Florence is doing. She’s off in her own world, taking on flights of fancy and fantasy without any real care for the consequence. The story is in Bayfield, who knows very well that the woman she loves is gearing up for humiliation, but also cannot stand in the way of her heart’s desire.
What results is a compelling little drama about what love is. The film doesn’t fully acquit Bayfield of any wrongdoing, but it’s clearly sympathetic to him. It never really portrays what he’s doing as cruel, even though it could be presented as such. As the film stays on this level of drama, it never really gets too exciting. It doesn’t really delve into the darkness inherent to this story, nor does it seem all that interested in the social and classist implications of what went on. But that’s fine. It’s all still pretty entertaining in the end.
Key to all this are the central performances. Meryl Streep is one of the few actresses who can really get away with playing a character like this. On the surface, it all seems terribly broad, an almost vulgar parody of a real life human being. But then, Streep just lets the humanity seep through, a complete lack of vanity in the performance allowing it to grow much more nuanced. And then there’s Hugh Grant, who gets the real plum role in this film. His St. Clair Bayfield is a man who struggles with his own existence, perhaps knowing full well that on some level, he really is just a fraud. The two manage to hold this film together, their performances providing a lot of the fun.
For a more rounded take on the Florence Foster Jenkins story, one might consider the 2015 French film Marguerite. Florence Foster Jenkins is a little less exciting, a little more prone to taking the easy dramatic route instead of considering all the various implications of what these characters are doing to each other. But in the end, it would be tough to say that the film isn’t wildly entertaining. You’ve got Meryl Streep clearly having fun trying to be the worst singer in the world. And you’ve got Hugh Grant having internal battles with himself. And that’s plenty on any day.
My Rating:
