Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who dreamed of becoming an opera singer, hiring the best people possible to make her live performing become a reality. Only one problem . . . She cannot sing!
Over the past few years Meryl Streep has become one of my favorite actress, I mean she is the most nominated ever for Academy Awards and rightly so. She does plenty of different types of films and this is another very different type of role for Streep. I think it certainly makes it more amusing considering she has been in musicals in recent years so we know she can actually sing.
Florence Foster Jenkins has done a lot of good for theater in New York and appears to have a marriage filled of love with St Clair Bayfield who tries to protect her from any bad reviews or people making fun of her. Really making sure she has such a good time with everything and having select people only allowed to attend any of the performances she puts on.
Very early on though we are shown that Bayfield has another woman as well, but this is something that is then explained a little bit better as the story unfolds. It has a lot more to it than the trailers would suggest. It is clear that Jenkins is not a well woman and has not been for a very long time. I guess this is one of the reasons she decided to just go for everything that she wanted. Know one actually told her that her Opera singing was awful, it does create for some very hilarious moments and scenes. But in the end also leads to a very heartbreaking then heart filled moment when you realize that it is actually good for others.
Cosme McMoon is hired as her pianist and it really is a great moment when he first hears her sing (and we do) as he really tries not to burst out laughing and most compose himself as she it told how brilliant she is sounding. He has ambitions to be taken very seriously as a musician but also understands how much of a good opportunity this is as well.
It really does have some lovely moments and as well as creating some moments of amusement and laughing it does also make you feel very sorry for Florence as no-one has told her that she is not very good and she believes she is a fantastic singer. I was imaging I would sound as bad as she did if I ever tried to sing Opera, as my normal attempts at singing are bad enough.
Meryl Steep as always gives her all in the role and actually has some very good chemistry with Hugh Grant. Watch out for his incredible dance scene, its even better than the famous one from Love Actually honestly I think that was one of my favorite moments in the whole film, which I do think is worth a watch. You can tell it has the very British touches to it. Why would anyone not want to see a Meryl Streep film?