Review: Florence Foster Jenkins

I was umming and ahing for quite some time whether to see this or not after first hearing about it, and once I saw the first trailer. But as it was directed by Stephen Frears, I felt that was enough to give it a go. Also, anything starring Meryl Streep is worth thinking about seeing at least. Also, the trailers seemed to purposefully hide her voice as that is the main part of the story. That was good marketing as I feel it will attract to hear how bad her voice really is.

Some of you may have already seen a film earlier this year with the same story called Marguerite. Sadly, I did not. But it is always a fascinating thing when two films are released pretty close to each other talking about the same thing. One recent example was when Snow White And The Hunstman, and Mirror Mirror: The Untold Adventures Of Snow White were released in 2012 a couple of months apart. I don't know how these things happen, but it always a nice topic to discuss.

It is not often that I see a film at the cinema that gives me a lot of laughs as most straight-out comedies do not appeal to me. But I can now add this one to the small list.
I have been fascinated by this true story since I heard about this and Marguerite being made. The film does explain that in parts. But I think it is comedy that was winning me over early on. For the rest of the film, I had a big smile of my face and was pretty satisfied with how everything ended in the end.

I really liked the old fashioned feel to it and I can see it being a big winner with the elderly cinema-goers. Also, the production design of the time period was great to look at. It is set in 1940's New York and it felt great to look at with the steam flying off the street and the style of cars was a delight to witness.

Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant are wonderful together and are the biggest draw out of the other performances. I appreciate Streep's performances more than love them. However, I really liked this particular leading role. It is probably because the performances reminded me so much of the character of Hyacinth Bucket from the sitcom, Keeping Up Appearances. Hugh Grant was great and made me forget how good an actor he is, especially in comedies. His posh British voice fitted into the time period perfectly and you can feel that Grant was born into the wrong era.
Simon Helberg was a real crowd-pleaser as the main supporting role. I was really happy to see Rebecca Ferguson back on the big screen. She was brilliant in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, and I am glad to see she her getting noticed.

The only negatives worth mentioning was probably some of the running gags in the film felt like they were running out of steam towards the end. Also, there was a small part to Streep's character that I did not like about. So there was a part of the film where I could not sympathize to root for the character.

But all in all, I had a very good time. It was certainly a good decision to go and see it in the end. It was a lot funner then I thought it would be and the strong performances of Streep and Grant certainly helped that.
It does have a sitcom style of approach to the story and I think that will work the audience and will do well in the box office. However, I still don't feel that they explained how the main character became so popular or why she is much loved.
But I will still recommend this, especially if you are in the mood for a few laughs.

Rating: 7/10