Film Review
Catherine Frot has been away from the cinema for three long years
(she's been busy performing Samuel Beckett's
Oh les beaux jours on stage).
When we last saw her on the big screen she was catering to the French
president's gastronomic needs in Christian Vincent's mouthwatering
comedy
Les Saveurs du Palais
(2012). Now, at long last, she is back, in a part that is less
likely to tickle the tastebuds than cause involuntary deafness.
Frot's character, the Baroness Marguerite Dumont (no doubt named after
the actress who played the Marx brothers' long-suffering stooge) loves
music, but music unfortunately does not love her. Her private
recitals are a source of mirth for her entourage of despicably
oleaginous toadies but, convinced she is indeed a great opera singer,
she decides it is time the world knew of her talent and a concert of
apocalyptic proportions is soon in the offing.
The scenario may sound far-fetched but it has its basis in fact, Frot's
melomaniac character being based on the American socialite Florence
Foster Jenkins (1868-1944), who became famous as the world's worst
soprano - she is the subject of Stephen Frears' next biopic starring
Meryl Streep, due for release in 2016. Jenkins did for opera what
the Luftwaffe did for historic British architecture during the Second
World War, except that she probably destroyed more eardrums. In
fact, she is not too far removed from the subject of Xavier Giannoli's
previous film comedy,
Superstar
(2012), which is about a complete non-entity who suddenly finds he has
become famous for no apparent reason. In
Marguerite, Giannoli delivers
another wry broadside against today's celebrity culture, but this time
one with a far more human dimension. In its portrayal of a
talentless singer who has fame thrust upon her (for the sole reason
that she is so obviously lacking in talent), it is the virtual mirror
image of the director's earlier film
Quand
j'étais chanteur (2006), where a singer with talent is
seen fading into obscurity.
Poor Marguerite Dumont may make us laugh hysterically with her
ear-shattering vocal contortions (some of which are indistinguishable
from the sound a hyena might make while it is being strangled) but she
is far from being the film's main object of derision. The
baroness may be deluded as to her singing prowess, but it is a delusion
which is cynically fed by her self-interested fawners who lack the one
vital quality which Marguerite possesses in abundance, a quality far
more precious than talent, and just as rare: sincerity. Among
these lip curling parasites it is so easy to see those who feed on
present day celebrities - the media executives, promoters, producers,
etc. - for whom deceit is second nature in the pursuit of their next
generous meal ticket. The virtues or otherwise of lying are
explored in secondary story strands, making us even more aware of the
hypocrisies and game-playing that govern the phoney world in which
Marguerite lives, the high society of the 1920s - even her husband
Georges is shown to be a fully fledged pharisee, flattering his wife
whilst taking her money to amuse himself with his floozy. In this
maze of lies and subterfuge the only character who seems true to
herself, and therefore most worthy of our respect, is Marguerite.
She may sing false, but everything else about her is genuine.
Giannoli's amazing return to form after the disappointing
Superstar is helped by Catherine
Frot's sublime performance, which surely rates as her best yet, even if
she shatters your ears as well as your heart. Despite being
overlong and somewhat padded out by subplots which hold little interest
and merely seemly to repeat the main themes of the film ad nauseum,
Marguerite is a somewhat lighter
proposition than Giannoli's previous films, not just a timely satire on
the vile cult of the celebrity that seems to have a stranglehold on our
own era, but also a deeply involving character study which straddles
the divide between humour and poignancy with remarkable deftness.
It is the director's most humane film yet, and Catherine Frot leaves
you, as ever, begging for more.
© James Travers 2015
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Next Xavier Giannoli film:
Une aventure (2005)
Film Synopsis
In Paris of the 1920s, Marguerite Dumont is a wealthy woman who likes
nothing better than to indulge her passion for music and opera.
For many years, she gives regular recitals for her regular entourage,
none of whom has the heart to tell her the truth. Marguerite's
enthusiasm for singing is, alas, not matched by her talent, and she
harbours the delusion that she is a great singer, encouraged by her
husband and close friends. This is fine as long as Marguerite
reserves her 'talents' for her nearest and dearest, but when she gets
it into her head to perform before a real audience at the Paris Opera
this is when the problems begin...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.