Chapter forty-one: Florence Foster Jenkins

Ahhhh! Okay, okay, okay, I must remain calm. This week, I have no personal introduction to share with you upfront and would be a more entertaining writer if I just dove into the movie, because believe me, I love this movie and will sprinkle my own opinion in between sentences more than I regularly do.

Alright, where to begin? This movie was released in April of 2016. Now that I think about it, it was the first Meryl Streep movie that I saw ads for on the television. I thought, "Oh, she's the good actress." A twelve-year-old version of me wanted to see the movie, in theaters, for its vintage sets and heart-warming story about a woman who loved to sing and lived for the melody of music. At the time, I loved to learn about the history, the people, and the art that came before me, and thought I could relate to the movie, to some degree, because I enjoyed singing too. But, with all else going on in that year, my aspiration to see the film went overlooked.

I'm no expert by any means, but I'm sure pediatric doctors say that a child's personality is supposed to shift and expand as they age. In my case, that is true...on some level. I believe I have grown in terms of self-image, and my interests are more hone in, but those interests still vastly consist of music and historical preservation as they did in 2016. Quaint isn't it? And that's another thing. I don't know ANY of the artists that my friends listen to now that their Spotify rap-ups are being released at the end of the year. I don't have Spotify, but I can tell you that if I did, my most frequently listened to artists would be Doris Day and Glenn Miller.

Anyhow, you may be wondering "What in the hell does this have to do with anything?" Well, I just find it simply amusing that a movie I once wanted to watch circled back to me on account of this project, and I still wanted to watch it for the same reasons. In short, three years later in April of this year, I finally watched it. Then again, and again, and for a third time all in the span of a forty-eight-hour rental. Once every sixteen hours if you're a math person.

Over the summer, I watched the movie yet again with my father, who found it rather comical. I can completely understand why because the movie is about a rich Opera singer who couldn't sing, yet that's not how I saw it. I saw it as a movie about a woman who lived her dream. I'm obviously being biased, probably because Meryl played the woman, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Here's mine:

Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl) is an opera singer in New York, 1944. Her love of music motivated her to begin her own Arts program, and in this way, she gained back the fortune she lost when her father disinherited her. On account of her fortune, she has built a name for herself in the state. She's very wealthy, and this wealth provides her with many friends who will lie to spare her feelings, including her own vocal coach to keep his income stable and a confidant husband, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant.) The internet leads me to believe that they had an open marriage, but he took more advantage of that openness than she did. They were romantic at one point and cared for each other, but benefited from each other much more on a professional level.

Florence wants to start singing again and hires a young pianist, Cosme McMoon (Simon Helberg.) The first time she sings, it's definitely a shock for two reasons. One being that Meryl can make those sounds, the other being that Florence actually did sound like that. But, I stand by my statement earlier that it's not obnoxiously funny. She (Florence) is trying! And, she certainly has more heart than a lot of musicians nowadays who cover up their vocal imperfections with autotune.

When it's time for a concert, tickets are sold selectively to a crowd of music-goers who are faithful to Florence and have been hand-picked by her husband. Selling tickets this way keeps the critics away, and it works. That is until St. Clair can no longer monitor his wife's ambition and protect her. Money plays a role in all of this. Again, Florence is rich. So, her husband can afford to keep the critics away from her, without her knowledge, but ultimately it's her money. When Florence wants to record a record or perform another concert, St. Clair wouldn't dare deny her of that.

Florence's less than perfect voice is the focal point of the film. The wonderful internet world has again led me to believe that her tone-deafness was a side effect of when she contracted Syphilis from her first husband, Frank Jenkins, in the 1880s. Since then, she's lived for fifty-some years with the disease, an uncanny number for that time period, and music is arguably the thing that has kept her alive all that time.

Her dream is to perform at Carnegie Hall- a dream that goes fulfilled, but not without some consequences. The venue is too large in number, and St. Clair can't control the rate of ticket sales. As a result, the truth escapes, despite St. Clair's efforts to hide it, and Florence is devastated. Her sickness overtakes her, and she dies just days later after saying her famous quote,

"People may say I couldn't sing, but they can never say I didn't sing."

I believe in Ironweed, I wrote that Meryl "died" in the last ten minutes of the film. Ten minutes. Now, it's worse. With six minutes to go, they couldn't keep her alive. Six minutes. I'm being melodramatic, of course, but that's only 360 seconds including credits!

If I failed to mention this earlier, this movie is based on a true story, and in real life, Florence Foster Jenkins died one month and a day after her Carnegie Hall performance. It still amazes me and thrills me that she lived just long enough to achieve her dream. Music, like any art form, is all about perspective. Florence Foster Jenkins appears to have had an optimistic one.

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Speaking of all this talk about music, The PROM, a Broadway, Netflix-adapted musical about an LGBTQ+ girl from Indiana premieres this Friday featuring a star-studded cast including Meryl, Nicole Kidman, James Corden, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kerry Washington. That being said, my Friday night is busy for the first time in six months, but in the meantime, I'm memorizing the soundtrack. Let Them All Talk premieres this Thursday as well, with Meryl, Diane West, and Candice Bergen. I'll have entries ASAP.

Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman also have recently been in an HBO Max show together called The Undoing. I won't get into it on here for fear of spoiling it, but this is my (unpaid) promotion, which I cannot stress enough: Watch it now! Here, I'll stop writing so you can. You will NOT regret it.

And as always, thank you for the entertainment, Meryl.