Marguerite (Catherine Frot) rehearses with her vocal coach, Pezzini (Michel Fau).
If you have no talent but want to make music, or at least pretend to, you have options. You can sing karaoke or play video games like Guitar Hero. Or you can be very rich and surround yourself with cowards.
That’s the approach taken by the heroine of the marvelous French comedy-drama Marguerite. She has everything she needs to succeed as an opera singer — the drive, the knowledge, the connections. Everything, that is, except the ability to sing. Catherine Frot is luminous as Marguerite Dumont, a woman whose passion to create art can’t be diminished by an utter lack of artistic skill.
In the opening scene, well-dressed patrons gather in Marguerite’s sprawling mansion. The year is 1920, and she is staging a musical benefit for war orphans. After guest vocalists perform, Marguerite sings “Queen of the Night” from The Magic Flute. She is terrible. The musicians share knowing looks, but the audience members listen blandly. When she finishes, she is rewarded with a standing ovation.
Marguerite’s commitment to opera is total. She has acquired a manuscript of Tosca with Puccini’s handwriting on it. She collects operatic scenery, as well as costumes she wears in photographs taken by a curiously loyal servant (Denis Mpunga). But in a premise that recalls “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” no one tells Marguerite she can’t sing. Some of her enablers are probably just humoring her. Others have more complex motivations — including her husband, Georges (André Marcon), who encourages her by secretly ordering the flowers she assumes are congratulatory gifts from fans.
Director and co-writer Xavier Giannoli draws on the story of Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944), the American heiress whose bad singing inspired several plays, and who is portrayed by Meryl Streep in a biopic due out later this year. Relocating the story to 1920s France lets Giannoli examine interesting themes, including the changing nature of art in the aftermath of World War I and especially the advent of jazz. The people playing and listening to jazz seem to be having a much better time than the snooty socialites of the classical music world.
In addition to the invited guests, attendees at Marguerite’s benefit concert include a couple of gatecrashers, poet/artist Kyrill (Aubert Fenoy) and jaded newspaper journalist Lucien (Sylvain Dieuaide). After the party, Lucien inspires Marguerite by writing a cynically positive review, and Kyrill invites her to sing at his avant-garde art event. The show is a disaster, but the public exposure gratifies Marguerite and prompts her to stage a solo performance. She hires a hilariously decadent vocal coach named Pezzini (Michel Fau) and prepares, even as Georges worries about her being publicly humiliated. The scenes of Marguerite rehearsing are a comic delight. Pezzini’s techniques include stacking books on Marguerite’s stomach and having her stare at a room-sized black rectangle.
Marguerite is a beautifully designed film that explores fascinating questions about ambition, loyalty and creativity. It’s a gem, and you’ve never seen a movie this good with so much bad singing.
