Florence hands over the money without a second thought. Arturo Toscanini visits Florence, ostensibly to give her a record, but also to say that his next performance at Carnegie Hall will not be able to go on unless he gets one thousand dollars in funding. Afterward, on the elevator ride out, McMoon can't contain himself any longer, and bursts out laughing. McMoon has a hard time keeping a straight face, while Bayfield and Totten soldier through the lesson. The next day McMoon shows up for practice, and learns how bad Florence is: shes terribly off-key, she has no sense of rhythm, and she often simply can't hit the notes, or manage the vocal complexities of the songs she chooses to sing. Bayfield says nothing about Florence's inability to sing. Clair Bayfield briefs McMoon about Florence's quirks: don't sit in the chairs famous people died in them, and they are for display only don't touch or ask about her briefcase and no sharp objects around her. She pays McMoon $150 per week, far more than he expected. Many come to apply, but she likes the shy and retiring Cosmé McMoon (Simon Helberg) and sends the rest home. Florence Foster Jenkins is taking voice lessons from John Totten, who works with the New York Opera, and she needs a pianist to accompany her. He leaves the house, and goes to the apartment he keeps with his mistress Kathleen Weatherley (Rebecca Ferguson). Then with the help of the housekeeper he removes her wig, revealing that she is bald, and apparently very ill. At home, he lovingly recites a poem to her until she falls asleep. She thanks everyone for supporting the arts, and goes home with her husband St. Then she appears as a Valkyrie on the battlefield. First Jenkins descends from the ceiling to play the muse to Stephen Foster, the composer of 'Oh! Susanna'. The opening scene is a living tableau review at a club that she founded and sponsors financially. Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) is a happy and carefree heiress who lives for music. The synopsis below may give away important plot points. No problem though if your husband and friends ensure that this fact is never revealed to you. She hires a professional singing coach and a pianist. ![]() After attending a concert she decides to take up opera singing (again). Florence suffers from long-term syphilis, contracted from her first husband.įlorence Foster Jenkins is a New York heiress and a patron of the arts. Florence lives in a grand hotel suite, while Bayfield lives in an apartment with his mistress, Kathleen Weatherley. Clair Bayfield, a British Shakespearean actor, is her husband and manager. In 1944, Florence Foster Jenkins is a New York City socialite heiress who founded the Verdi Club to celebrate her love of music. But when Florence decided to give a public concert at Carnegie Hall in 1944, St Clair knew he faced his greatest challenge. ![]() ![]() Her "husband" and manager, St Clair Bayfield, an aristocratic English actor, was determined to protect his beloved Florence from the truth. The voice she heard in her head was beautiful, but to everyone else it was hilariously awful. We’d rather go without bread than Mozart,’ she trills, like a modern Marie Antoinette.The true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, the legendary New York heiress and socialite who obsessively pursued her dream of becoming a great opera singer. What would her modern equivalent look like? A Russian oligarch’s little princess paying call centres in China to buy her songs on iTunes? But director Stephen Frears sketches out her tragic backstory, and Streep in grande dame mode is not to be missed. You could get a bit sour about ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’. He pampers and fusses over Florence, indulging her every whim (we all need a St Clair in our lives), but comes unstuck when Florence dreams big: hiring Carnegie Hall in 1944. His mission in life is to keep the ‘mockers and scoffers’ at bay, bribing audiences and paying off critics. Protecting her from the truth is Florence’s younger second husband, St Clair Bayfield (played by Hugh Grant, who has transformed into a silver fox overnight). ![]() When tone-deaf Florence opens her mouth it’s like opening the door on a barn full of on-heat foxes. To sing this badly must stretch as many acting muscles as all that Oscar-winning emoting. Wearing comically vile dresses that look like they’re made out of cushion covers and doilies, Streep is clearly having a blast. (David Bowie put one of her records on his list of favourite albums.) In the 1930s, the deluded diva sang at private recitals in New York, warbling opera, blissfully unaware that her hilariously awful singing voice might shatter the chandeliers at any moment. Meryl Streep continues her screw-the-Oscars, life-affirming run of movies with this ridiculously watchable comedy, playing filthy rich socialite Florence Foster Jenkins.
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