Marguerite (2015)
Directed by Xavier Giannoli

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.

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...