Florence Foster Jenkins (PG)

Three stars

Dir: Stephen Frears

With: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg

Runtime: 110 minutes

READERS who saw Marguerite at the Glasgow Film Festival will be familiar with the tale of Florence Foster Jenkins, the New York socialite who thought she sang like an angel but actually sounded like a demonic, scalded, all round miffed, cat.

The true tale is told again in Stephen Frears’ picture, starring Meryl Streep in the lead. While his Florence Foster Jenkins might tread the same territory as the earlier French film, it is a very different affair. Marguerite adopted a melancholic air; Frears’ picture goes for a lighter, brighter tone, but it remains surprisingly moving. That’s what having a triple Oscar winner in the title role can do for a film. And if you think that is near miraculous, the picture also makes one warm to Hugh “Hammer of the Press” Grant all over again. Really. Honestly. Oh, let us get on.

Frears, the director of Philomena, The Queen, and Dangerous Liaisons, opens his tale in New York City, 1944. America, like the rest of the world, is at war but life goes on as normal for those rich enough to afford a quiet spot away from the madness. Florence lives with her second husband, St Clair Bayfield, an English earl who is all title and no money, in upper somewhere or other Manhattan. Her hobby, nay, her passion, is singing. St Clair’s passion is making his wife happy. As we shall see, he goes about that in a rather unorthodox manner. It is a measure of Nicholas Martin’s fine script that he introduces us to Florence’s marriage slowly, recognising it as almost a character in its own right with many a layer to be peeled back.

When first we meet her, Florence is in need of a new pianist. Many audition for the role, but only one, Cosme McMoon (played by Simon Helberg of The Big Bang Theory fame), is chosen. Like everyone else who comes into collision with Florence’s “art”, Cosme soon realises that she cannot sing for toffee never mind dollars. But the folding green stuff, as dispensed by St Clair, soon puts his mind at rest about artistic integrity and all that other jazz.

All concerned bumble along delightfully at their morning sessions with Streep’s Florence posing a danger to any crystal in the vicinity. Unlike Marguerite, Frears’ picture over-eggs this part of the story. Once it has been established that Florence is a terrible singer there is really no need to keep hitting the viewer over the head with the fact. It is the law of diminishing returns - first time it is funny, tenth time less so.

Joining Streep and Grant in the cast is a veritable choir of British actors playing Americans. This, and the unshowy settings, hint at the limits of Frears’ budget, but he works wonders with what he has. This, in the end, is a story about people, their small triumphs and often quiet tragedies, and Frears does not forget that.

Grant has not seemed terribly happy in front of a movie camera of late, probably because the material has been, to put it generously, patchy (Did You Hear About the Morgans anyone?). Here, though, he looks as though he has come home again. Few can do easy charm mixed with fellow feeling like Grant. Perhaps it is playing opposite Streep, maybe it’s because his character gets to rant and rave at a gentleman of the press, but he is thoroughly enjoying himself here. Helberg, all goofiness and zero guile, makes a perfect companion for both Grant and Streep as the wimpy piano player with a good heart.

The film ultimately became too heavy on the slapstick and farce for my tastes, always seeming at its strongest in the quieter moments when difficult truths were handled with delicacy and devotion. There was much more to Madame Florence than those who laughed at her could know. Both Frears’ film and Marguerite are, in their own ways, fitting and loving testaments to a unique lady.

Meryl Streep talks about Florence Foster Jenkins in The Herald Magazine on Saturday.