Marguerite

The comedy of manners is the weapon of choice for satirising the wealthy and powerful. Its favourite target is vanity, like in the fairy tale Emperor's New Clothes where a vain ruler is fooled into believing that beautiful garments have been made for him only to display his pompous nakedness for all to see. The narrative of Marguerite (2015) is framed around this theme, except that instead of clothes the hapless victim is encouraged to believe she has a beautiful voice. In her case, the self-deception is less about vanity and more about her love of singing and the inability to hear her own voice.

Marguerite is loosely based on the true story of American socialite Florence Foster Jenkins. This sumptuous art-house style French production portrays her as a wealthy and eccentric benefactor of the arts in 1920s Paris. She is easily manipulated by the flattery of others and obsessive about opera singing. She also loves her unfaithful and financially dependent husband who is incapable of telling her the truth about her voice and who always has an excuse for missing her recitals. Her friends and house staff protect her from the knowledge of how badly she sings in gratitude for her kindness and because she is a 'lovely lady'. The stakes are raised when Marguerite decides on a public recital where of course the audience cannot be stacked with grateful patrons. The resulting performance is a seat-squirming experience that fills both the on-screen theatre and your own cinema with painful laughter and vicarious embarrassment for someone who can be so cruel to music. The film itself becomes an operatic performance of pride's folly.

This could have been an unbearable story made worse by intolerable singing, but it works well as a comically sad tale about a gullible woman who wants desperately to believe she can create beauty with her voice. The filming, sets and costumes evoke the era with authenticity and French actress Catherine Frot's subtle performance balances the sublime with the ridiculous. Frot's wide-eyed trust in others is both endearing and engaging as she draws us into her make-believe world that borders on madness. Some truly beautiful operatic voices create a haunting background score that only accentuates the appalling noise that comes from Marguerite's voice box. Its an entertaining story but don't be surprised if you catch yourself asking "what is so funny about bad singing?" and feeling embarrassed for laughing at another person's delusions.

This film shows in an artistic and subtle way how self consciousness can become very subjective in one's own perspective. A musician's environment can become a metaphor to others to learn about how difficult it is to trascend in life. As music is the main theme in this film, in a general understanding, tuning or being in tone is fundamental to success in any discipline related to this field. The main character of this film loves music and feels it in her own soul, but however lacks the objective sense of the public in the audience about the way she sings. When she finds out the truth she just falls apart in her desire to gain her objective and that marks her life for good.

This comedy of manners was masterfully done. For a story about a woman who was an atrocious singer but didn't know it and performed publicly, it was delightfully light-handed. Catherine Frot was exceptional as Marguerite. She didn't portray the character as a silly, narcissistic woman as I'd feared but expected. She was portrayed as a passionate, thoughtful, lonely and yet vibrant woman who was just blissfully unaware of her lack of talent. Yes she was a terrible singer and we all laughed when she performed, but it was done with such feeling toward Marguerite that it never felt that I was being asked to laugh at her but rather the situation.

I fell in love with all of the characters, even those who used Marguerite and those that tried to swindle her – they were just so well written and full of life. And you can't help but love those who supported and stood by her.

The ending was also surprisingly heart-wrenching, but fitting and sadly satisfying.

Xavier Giannoli's MARGUERITE is a Gallo-period drama borrows the inspiration from the story of Florence Foster Jenkins, and grafts it onto a rich French woman Marguerite Dumont (Frot) in the Golden twenties, whose inferior singing ability doesn't stop her from fulfilling her biggest fantasy, to organise her own concert in a real theatre.

Naturally, there are two possibilities of Marguerite's apparent oblivion of her own ludicrous voice, a more plausible one is she is fully cognisant of her inadequacy but she is not deterred by it, since she has the wealth to squander, she doesn't mind (or can endure) to be the object of ridicule, as long as it pleases herself and hogs the spotlight due to her self-centred disposition; an alternative possibility could be, she actually doesn't entirely realise how awful her singing capacity is, because, maybe she has some hearing disability or very often, in reality, the recording of one's own voice sounds rather different from what one habitually conceives of, still, the scenario in the case of Marguerite is more serious, in Giannoli's script, she is building castles in the air, what enters in her own ears (while she is singing), assures that she is a qualified coloratura (or mezzo) with distinct talent, an autodidact achieves her faculties by persistent practice. I don't know if there is a medical term for her deep-rooted delusion, or more practically, it is simply Giannoli's creation, which sets to hone the climax, to see what will happen if she hears her real voice from a record player.

In that case, Marguerite is really a wretch despite of her blessed (or cursed) wealth, she is a woman engulfed by lies and pretence, her husband George (Marcon), marries her for the enormous fortune, haunted by guilt, which by the way doesn't stop him from conducting an extramarital affair, and has no guts or whatsoever to rescue her from the elephant-in-the-room; others regard her as a laughing stock, either egg her on or refrain from candour for their own sake, including the opportunistic young reporter Lucien (Dieuaide) and his poet friend Kyrill (Fenoy), who merely exploits her as an anomaly for his own anarchic propaganda.

It is riveting to watch Catherine Frot feigns her impassioned performance under the salvo of off- key ululation, which is carefully meted out to aptly eke out laughter in each of the film's five chapters. Besides, Ms. Frot doesn't yield to the simplified caricature of Marguerite, in lieu, her self- possessed mannerism glistens with bons mots, she balances off Marguerite's larger-than-life image with endearing subtlety which reflects her as a sensible human being, she is, after all, a woman dares to be honest with her own passion and feelings, against all odds. Comedian Michel Fau is pre-eminent in his flamboyant turn as Marguerite's singing coach Atos Pezzini, a gay opera singer, who is blackmailed into accepting this impossible task by Marguerite's loyal butler Madelbos (Mpunga), who, undoubtedly, is the most inscrutable player in Marguerite's enterprise, with his own agenda which is applied as a game-changer in the end but rings hollow in its own seriousness.

Shot entirely in Czech Republic, as a fill-in for Paris, the film adopts a more subdued palette of the roaring 20s, albeit of its amazingly detailed vintage decor, as if Giannoli tries to forewarn us of the finale throughout the whole journey, MARGUERITE is not a farce of titbits, she is a by-product comes to fruition in a hypocritical society, you can mock her, but she actually accomplish something few of us dare to even start with.

"Marguerite" (2015 release from France; 128 min.) brings the story, "inspired by true events" we are reminded at the beginning of the film, of socialite Marguerite Dumont. As the movie opens, it is "September, 1920", and we are at a private recital, with a goal of raising funds for the was orphans. When Marguerite, who headlines and generously sponsors the program at the same time, finally comes on, she sings.... completely off-key. Yet people clap and adore her. Why? To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from French quality director Xavier Giannoli who previously brought us other high quality films like "When I Was A Singer" and "In the Beginning". Here he tackles a variation of "the emperor has no clothes" story. It is clear to anyone that Marguerite cannot hold a note, yes she gathers acclaim, be it because people think she is brave enough to do it, and/or because she is delusional, and/or because people want to remain in her good graces. When, in preparation for her first bi-scale public concert, her exasperated music teacher comments to Marguerite's husband "Who will throw the first stone?", that becomes the main point of the movie: will Marguerite be told the stone-cold truth or not? Catherine Frot brings a towering performance as Marguerite, and in fact won the French equivalent of the Best Actress Oscar for this (the movie was nominated for a BUNCH of Cezar Awards, including Best Film and Best Director). My only complaint is that at 2 hr. 10 min. the movie is a bit too long for its own good. I think that trimming 15-20 min. would've made for a tighter movie without losing any of the narrative. The "inspired by true events" line at the beginning in fact refers to New York socialite Florence Foster Jenkins, and coincidence or not, a movie about her, starring none other than Meryl Streep in the title role, is set for a release in US theaters in just a few months (August, I believe). I'll be interested in checking out that one too, to see how it compares with this.

"Marguerite" opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. The Saturday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended quite nicely, somewhat to my surprise. Maybe the fact that the Meryl Streep movie is coming out soon (and is already gathering buzz for Streep's supposedly stunning performance) has increased the interest in seeing the French movie version. Regardless, if you like classical music (of which there is a TON in the movie) and are up for a top-notch foreign movie with great performances, you cannot go wrong with this. "Marguerite" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!