We’ll have to wait until later this year for the official biopic of Florence Foster Jenkins, a curious footnote to music history. Jenkins found fame for her terrible singing, but also for the fact that because she was a respected society lady, nobody had the heart to tell her the truth about her voice.
Before that film — with Meryl Streep as Jenkins — is released, we have a fictionalized version inspired by the same story. “Marguerite” is set in the early 1920s, and introduces us to the blissfully deluded title character (played by veteran French actress Catherine Frot) at her small-town mansion.
Marguerite has impressive wealth, and the local charities are dependent on her largesse. This means that at each fund-raiser, everybody has to sit around Marguerite’s house and suffer through another one of her ear-splitting interpretations of great opera.
The latest such event is crashed by a naughty music critic (Sylvain Dieuaide) and his anarchist pal (Aubret Fenoy). They love the fact that Marguerite’s voice makes the paint peel off the walls; they intend to promote her in Paris as an avant-garde artiste.
That leads to some of the funnier moments in the movie. Later, Marguerite hires an opera singer (Michel Fau) to help her prepare for her first real public concert — a date with destiny that, we suspect, might bring her fantasy crashing down.
The film sounds like a single-joke premise, and it does tend to repeat itself. Still, it doesn’t stop being funny — the look on the face of the opera singer in the moment he first sits down to hear Marguerite audition is a memorable piece of “what have I got myself into?” terror.
Flickering around the edges of director Xavier Giannoli’s film is a reflection on the phenomenon of self-delusion. We believe what we want to believe, and Marguerite becomes the living embodiment of that tendency.
The interesting thing about the movie is that the main character isn’t just a figure of ridicule. Giannoli and Frot bring enough mercy to their portrayal of Marguerite that we actually like her by the end.
That’s a tough balance; see also Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood,” the story of the notoriously incompetent filmmaker, for another example of the genre. The gifted people have had enough acclaim in movies; it’s time for the untalented to shine.
“Marguerite” (3 stars)
A funny but thankfully merciful film about a wealthy society lady (Catherine Frot) who — convinced of her talent as a singer — subjects her acquaintances to ear-splitting recitals of her music. The movie — a fictionalized take on the real-life Florence Foster Jenkins — would be a single-joke affair were it not for the affection Marguerite generates in the course of her career. In French, with English subtitles.
Rating: R, for nudity
Showing: Seven Gables theater
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