Simply Perfect

Sadly Over-hyped

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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.

Never mind the parallels other reviewers have given to the American singer Florence Foster Jenkins. Director Xavier Giannoli has created a marvelous story which is operatic in it's own right! "Marguerite" is both funny and tragic as can be found in many classic operas. Catherine Frot brings the character Marguerite to life in such a believable way the viewer feels sorrow for her self imposed delusions on her ability to sing and her inability to see how her husband uses her and her so called society friends cater to her delusions even tho they themselves are laughing behind her back.Her devoted butler, Madelbos, sees her as she sees herself - a grand opera singer who has performed all the great operatic female roles to perfection. Thus all the care and detail he contributes in her costumes and photos of her as if she actually performed these roles. Since her husband avoids her Marguerite has placed life into Madelbos's hands. Enter the two young journalist who meet Marguerite by sneaking into her estate during a fancy party to raise funds for the War Orphans charity. These two young men are very involved with the post WWI avant-garde movement in Paris and they find Marguerite to be both anti-establishment and uproarious. They write a glowing but tongue-in-cheek review of her singing. She reads it and is so taken with these two young men she befriends them and they in-turn introduce her to the underground art movement in Paris at that time. These people accept her as a performance artist and take her to heart.So now Marguerite finds herself in two worlds, 1. The established moneyed society which patronize her and 2. The avant-garde art underground youth art culture. She experiences happiness, ambition, and excitement. Of course all this comes crashing down around her and she breaks under the reality. Her husband learns the hard way that he really loves her but it is too late. Her butler Madelbos could see this eventual end and is prepared to capture this bitter sweet moment.What a wonderful movie, story, vision, Xavier Giannoli has brought to the screen. A delight to see, maybe painful to hear at times, but your heart will ride with Marguerite through her highs and lows, and be broken along with her friends that believed in her.Bravo!!!

From correspondence I've had over the years it seems that there are roughly a dozen people who tend to follow my reviews here and they will know in what high esteem I hold Catherine Frot, not least for her versatility which allows her to move effortlessly from the pathetically ditzy neglected wife in Un Air de famille to the mother from hell in Vipere au poing with virtually any and everything in between. Her first love is the stage - indeed she made her name in the stage version of Un Air of famille, which earned her a Moliere, plus a Cesar when she replicated her role, complete with dog collar, on celluloid - and for three years she has neglected the cinema for the theatre - I myself was lucky enough to see her in the Ingrid Bergman role in Cactus Flower (Fleur de cactus in French) barely a week ago, but now she is back on the screen in what I can only describe as a tour de force; Marguerite is a wealthy socialite in 1920s Paris who has an all consuming love for opera, so much so that she loves nothing better than performing arias for her society friends in salons. The problem, tragedy may not be too strong a word, is that she is totally without vocal talent yet for reasons best known to themselves her friends conspire to keep this knowledge from her and applaud every note and even pen fine reviews. Although the story is fiction - there may be a reason the character is named Marguerite Dumont; the actress Margaret Dumont, was the foil for Grouch Marx in the majority of the Marx Brothers films and was also a wealthy society lady with delusions of grandeur - it is clearly based on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins a wealthy American who also harboured the delusion that she was a world-class diva. Catherine Frot is outstanding and it may well be the finest performance she has given in the cinema, which is, of course, saying something. For some reason it appears that Meryl Streep is shooting very much the same story even as I write and this may well keep the Frot film off American - and possibly even UK - screens which would be unforgivable.

Marguerite is inspired by the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a rich woman who loves so much opera she thinks she is a great soprano. And she sings in small salons or recital halls for a confidential audience, getting good articles in musical publications, written by friends of course. Catherine Frot is the perfect actress to perform this naive and touching opera lover, unconscious of her lack of talent. She is just so natural that we have immediate sympathy for her. But not for her family circle who, in that weird situation, did not help her, especially her husband who deserts her and her butler who manipulates her "talent", everybody laughing around. Some changes have been made from the true story : Florence is now Marguerite (maybe in reference at Marguerite Gautier? See the last part), and the end of her life was different. But it is a great vision of that pathetic situation. There always have been art lovers who naively think they are genius, remember Ed Wood. Just wait Stephen Frears version , with Meryl Streep in the role of Florence (whose other first name was Narcissa) ...