Straining to hit the high notes

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This article was published 13/08/2016 (3525 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In this light, larky biopic of “the world’s worst singer,” Meryl Streep stars as delusional diva Florence Foster Jenkins, who attracted a cult of loyal listeners despite a crashing lack of talent. Florence regularly performed for New York soirées in the early 1900s, mangling the classical repertoire with passionate ineptitude.

How exactly does this film turn ear-scrapingly awful singing into crowd-pleasing summer cinema? Director Stephen Frears (Philomena, The Queen, High Fidelity) and scripter Nicholas Martin, who has written mostly for British TV, do likeable work, but mostly it comes down to the infectious nature of Streep’s misguided, gusto-grabbing musicality.

(Consider what happened at FFJ’s Winnipeg première: as the film finished and the crowd wandered out into the lobby, several audience members vied with each other to see who could perform the shriekiest version of the Bell Song from Lakmé. There’s something curiously compelling about the whole Florence Foster Jenkins phenomenon.)

A wealthy socialite with a sincere belief in the power of music, Florence uses her inheritance to help fund New York’s performing arts. In return, her own concerts are indulged, the small, select audiences either smiling in polite middlebrow ignorance or disguising their laughter with strategic coughing fits and bursts of applause.

Florence’s longtime companion St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), a failed Shakespearean actor and professional Englishman, tactfully shepherds her “career.” He bribes and bullies the critics, vets the spectators, and hires understanding support, including pianist Cosme McMoon (Simon Helberg of The Big Bang Theory).

This carefully constructed bubble might pop, however, when Florence makes the fateful decision to perform a public concert at Carnegie Hall in 1944.

Streep plays Florence as a boundlessly enthusiastic innocent, her girlishness contrasting poignantly with her massive Valkyrie-like costumes. The musical performances are carefully calibrated. Singing well is hard, but pretending to sing badly could be even harder, and Streep mostly manages to pull off cat-being-strangled comedy without tipping over into outright unlistenable tragedy.

Grant, formerly burdened with relentless charm, is able to do much better work now that he no longer has floppy bangs. Looking his full 55 years, Grant brings a lovely strain of seriousness to a tricky comic role. St. Clair is a bit of a bounder — he keeps a Hell’s Kitchen apartment and a younger girlfriend — but his protective tenderness and devotion to Florence are undeniable.

As Florence’s initially incredulous but ultimately affectionate accompanist, Helberg occasionally overplays the sitcom-y reaction shots. He does do his own piano work, however, which allows Frears to avoid the usual divided set-up in which the camera constantly switches off between shots of the star making a dreamy “musical” face and close-ups of what are clearly someone else’s hands.

The script could occasionally go darker and deeper. In one scene, maestro Arturo Toscanini (John Kavanagh) shows up at Florence’s home with flowery compliments, along with a seemingly offhand mention of the money troubles threatening his next project.

Martin hints at the sometimes queasy relationship between patrons and artists. He fleetingly suggests perhaps Florence, who has the luxury of self-funding her musical career, is being indulged and enabled by paid hangers-on and sycophants. He intimates perhaps her enveloping self-delusion isn’t an entirely positive thing.

Mostly, though, the film skirts these issues, falling back on a generalized, sentimentalized “follow your dream” message.

Ultimately, this amiable and easy approach makes for an entertaining story but fails to get to the complicated, slightly uncomfortable heart of Florence’s so-bad-it’s-good cult appeal.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca