Marguerite Dumont was a legendary Opera singer, but not because she was good. She was so bad that people enjoyed laughing at her off-key shrieking, like an early version of hipsters watching a bad performance ironically. Dumont was not aware of this though. She believed she was beloved, so she was basically the original William Hung.
But Marguerite is actually based on a true story of the American singer Florence Foster Jenkins, who is getting her own movie starring Meryl Streep. The French version may take liberties in adapting her story to 1920s France, but in any event it illustrates the absurdity of delusion, and also the dangers.
Dumont (Catherine Frot) has a whole entourage of people allowing her to believe she’s a great singer. Her husband Georges (Andre Marcon) is just being nice, but her butler Madelbos (Denis Mpunga) has an agenda. He takes photographs of Marguerite and thinks they’ll be valuable once she’s famous, or infamous. I suppose it’s Georges’ money that’s enabling this because it’s not cheap. They send a roomful of flowers from “admirers,” shelter her from any negative reviews, and hire “experts” to keep the ruse going, including a bearded lady reading her tarot prediction success. The deception gets bigger and bigger. She also has an ostrich. I don’t think that ever became significant but I thought I should mention it.
The film uses Dumont’s bad singing sparingly, because it could get really old. Writer/director Xavier Giannoli and cowriter Marcia Romano make sure every time we hear Dumont sing, it’s to a new effect. Usually it’s based on the reaction of others hearing her for the first time, but the further along it gets, the more shocked the cultured opera performers are.
Like any good underdog story, Marguerite has got training montages, only they’re ridiculous ones because all the exercises are a sham anyway. It is a bittersweet comedy that borders on tragic, because ultimately the enablers are doing more harm than good, and any short term “good” is at her expense. You’ve got to give it to her though. She goes out there and gives it her all. That’s not easy if you’re good, let alone if you’re not.
The film is too long. There’s so much to resolve by the end that it shouldn’t have taken the scenic route setting up the whole network of people exploiting Dumont. We get it, she can’t sing, so just get to the point of how they managed to take it this far.
Pacing issues aside, Marguerite is a solid film. You can’t make up stories this crazy, but you can move them to France I guess.
Image via Cohen Media Group
Fred Topel is a veteran journalist since 1999 and has written for CraveOnline since 2006. See Fred on the ground at Sundance, SXSW, Telluride or in Los Angeles and follow him on Twitter @FredTopel, Instagram @Ftopel.
