Screened Out – Marguerite

[three-star-rating]Catherine Frot, Sylvain Dieuaide, André Marcon, Aubert Fenoy, Michel Fau, Denis, M’Punga, Christa Théret[/three-star-rating]

Marguerite opens at Winter Park’s Regal Cinema on Apr. 1.

For this plot to be enjoyable it needs to be brisk and intimate; Marguerite is sprawling and messy, like it’s protagonist’s voice.

The comic drama Marguerite is a fascinating film – a French fiction based on a famous, filthy-rich American who thought she could sing like an angel. Like its protagonist, Marguerite adds too many glissandos and flourishes, and it goes off melody. A good indication is that it clocks in at over 2 hours; this should have been at least 25 minutes shorter, and with fewer characters. If they’re all fictional anyway…

By the time the dandy Michel Fau has come to coach Catherine Frot, Marguerite has lost it's way.
By the time the dandy Michel Fau has come to coach Catherine Frot, Marguerite has lost it’s way.

The real woman who inspired this story was Florence Foster Jenkins, born in 1868. (For years, I’ve been a little obsessed with her.) She was a tone-deaf New York socialite. Her rich parents didn’t support her musical career. Out of spite, she eloped, caught syphilis from her husband, grifted money from her mother secretly, and waited for her stingy father to die. Once he did – she was 41 – Foster Jenkins inherited millions and then began her misguided musical career, singing off tune and without any sense of rhythm. Her fame culminated in a one-night performance in 1944 at Carnegie Hall; she was 76, and she personally handed out the tickets, avoiding music critics.

A movie starring Meryl Streep and High Grant will open this summer.

Marguerites title character (Frot) is rich; she’s married a poor baron (Marcon) who has fallen out of love with her as she increasingly becomes a public spectacle. Her drive for fame drives him away. Her money – and a creepily attentive butler (M’Punga) – makes her dreams a possibility.

That’s a great story, and a worthy functionalization of Foster Jenkins.

The real Florence Foster Jenkins has a movie about her - not fictionalized - with Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, coming out later this year.
The real Florence Foster Jenkins has a movie about her – not fictionalized – with Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, coming out later this year.

However, the movie starts with a young chanteuse (Théret) coming to sing at Marguerite’s manse. The elderly lady heard the beautiful young voice and thought this would be the perfect warm-up to her own warbling. This scene gives us the impression that Théret is the protagonist.

Nope, it only gets more confusing. An anarchist music critic (Dieuaide) and his Dadaist friend (Fenoy) have snuck in. Dieuaide falls in love with Théret as he decides to laud the old lady’s screeching in his paper. Later, this unnecessary young love and cruelty gets even more confused with on-again, off-again opium addiction.

Add to that a butler who takes photos, arranges talent, coordinates recitals, builds sets, chauffeurs the car, and performs a myriad of other tasks a rich woman would have a houseful of staff for. Marguerite quickly becomes a musical mess.

At least director Xavier Giannoli deftly balances the film between light comedy and empathetic drama. Then, a foppish gay stereotype of a vocal teacher (Fau) enters the story to bilk Marguerite as he prepares her for a public spectacle. Even Giannoli cannot keep all these subplots sorted; main characters disappear for an hour in the middle. Like its singer, Marguerite loses its wind.

[rating-key]

The film at least never looks boring. Between the richness of Marguerite’s world and the seediness of the anarchists and Dadaists, we get a real sense of France recovering from WWI…even though that’s not really what this movie is about.

What save the film are the excellent and even subtle performances – especially Frot and Marcon. She portrays a needy sorrow, he a frosty embarrassment. Their marriage – their negotiating, subterfuge, and tentative affection – is the real core of this messy story. These beautiful notes should’ve been played clearly, with full force.

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