Film Review: Florence Foster Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins
Directed by Stephen Frears
In cinemas from May 5

We all know that when we sing in private in the car or the shower that we are as good as David Bowie or Bryn Terfel, Kiri Te Kanawa or Beyonce. We know we have a reasonable voice but we also know we are not going to win any major talent show.

But then there are those who do go on New Zealand’s Got Talent or Britain’s Got Talent who have almost no talent at all and are surprised when they are told so.

But not so Florence Foster Jenkins who in the1930s and 1940s was a New York heiress and socialite. She was one of the stalwarts of the New York classical music scene, even founding and funding her own private musical society, The Verdi Club. She also obsessively pursued her dream of becoming a great singer and performed at many private functions, particularly the Verdi Club where she was considered a marvellous singer.

However, she had no natural singing ability and no concept of tone, pitch or acting. Convinced of her own talent and protected by her husband and manager, the English actor St Clair Bayfield, she remained blissfully unaware of her failing, which was aided by the fact that she was never reviewed by the critical music press.

Florence Foster Jenkins follows her last year, 1944, when aged 76, she decided to give a concert mainly for the military at Carnegie Hall which she paid for. Although the concert was a great success, there were also disparaging reviews where she was called among other things “the worst damn singer in the world.”  

Director Stephen Frears (Philomena, The Queen) has managed to make this something of an empress’ new clothes film. It seems like a vast conspiracy where no one speaks the truth about the elaborate joke being played on them, where we have both sympathy for the main character while being appalled at the way she unconsciously manipulates those around her as well as the manipulation of the audiences, critics and music world generally by Bayfield (Hugh Grant).

Even her voice coach Carlo Edwards (David Haig) and piano accompaniment Cosmé McMoon (Simon Helberg) act out their roles in her world. Helberg is the piano player is the Everyman who articulates both sides of his encounter with the woman, expressing his incredulity, doubt and ultimately appreciation and respect for Florence’s courage and dedication.

Meryl Streep provides just the right mixture of exuberance and charm to show the woman’s complete confidence in her ability with an amazing level of self-deception.

Tune into NBR Radio’s Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson on Sunday morning, for analysis and feature-length interviews.