Review of Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) by Shpostal — 27 Aug 2016

I had actually read about Florence Foster Jenkins, the socialite who dearly loved music but her love and abilities were very very far apart. It's a sad tale ultimately, and the bio movie is one of the best of the year.

Meryl Streep turns in a wonderful performance, an Oscar worthy one at that, and Hugh Grant matches her step for step as she portrays this woman. Because her loving husband played by Hugh Grant wants her to be happy and is determined to please her as much as humanly possible, her concerts are given to other friends in her socialite circle who were quite kind in real life by always praising Jenkins while knowing full well she couldn't sing worth a damn.

More touching was the fact that Jenkins suffered from syphillus courtesy of her first husband at the age of 18. Knowing sex with her second husband could kill him, theirs was a marriage of abstinence while she kindly allowed him a dalliance with another woman. As the movie suggested, it did not diminish his admiration and love for her.

That slavish attention carried over to carefully screening her private performances, bribing music papers and whomever else could possibly devastate her with a bad review. However, in 1944, she was moved by the sacrifices of our armed forces and announced she would reserve 1000 tickets and play Carnegie Hall, to the shock of her husband, the pianist played very well by Simon Bell and her friends. To top this off, she also near the same time recorded a record that was receiving airplay and gathering attention from those who knew how bad she was and in their defense, some thought deliberate.

The results are the true cap of the movie, and during the film we get laughs, determination, courage and most important love that allowed Jenkins to live far longer than most folks with her disease.

It's not your usual movie topic, but the film is done impeccably, Streep is brilliant, and you come away moved. We need more movies and people like Florence Foster Jenkins.