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I actually don’t see a lot of French movies, but I see a few. Only two really come to mind as ones I loved: the delightful and quasi-dark Amelie and the absurd OSS 117 spy spoofs. But there is a kind of similar feel you get with many movies that are not simply comedies or dramas. The tragicomedies, those are the really uniquely French ones.
Marguerite is a movie loosely based on Florence Foster Jenkins, an American socialite famed in the 1920’s for being a terrible singer. In this movie, we are instead in France but also around 1921. At the mysterious castle of patron of the arts Baroness Marguerite Dumont (Catherine Frot), a young opera singer comes to perform. This is Hazel (Christa Théret), and I thought she’d be an important character. She is not. Hazel runs into music journalist Lucien Beaumont (Sylvain Dieuaide) and has a mild connection with him before getting a chance to sing herself, quite beautifully.
But then it’s time for the big show. Marguerite comes in, all smiles and charm, talking about her love of music and hoping her husband Georges (André Marcon) is there. But Georges is intentionally delayed, and soon we see why. Marguerite is a terrible singer. But everyone lies to her and pretends she’s great. Lucien takes a liking to her and writes a weirdly positive review of her singing in a local paper. After a few mild scenes of little import, it’s time for the real plot of the movie.
Marguerite wants to perform in public, but Lucien has convinced her to take lessons, and has gotten broke, older singer Atos Pezzini (Michel Fau) to help out. He’s great. Probably one of the more amusing but engaging performances in the movie. At the same time, Marguerite’s loyal servant Madelbos (Denis Mpunga) tries to keep things on track while Georges has an affair and tries to convince his wife to stop all this nonsense without explicitly telling her she’s bad.
Thus the farce goes on, as everyone but Marguerite knows she’s terrible, but her passion and sincerity are real. And so too are the real emotions she has, the dramatic part of the movie. It’s odd, this movie. I have to say, though, that I liked it.
Perhaps not paced as well as it could have been, it was nonetheless exceedingly French.
The concept is clear, the tragedy of arrogance and hubris combined with the pure desire to make people happy and the sincere love of music. People are so unwilling to hurt the Baroness’ feelings that they instead let her keep going until it gets ridiculous. Catherine Frot is excellent as the naive bad singer, showing off both the giddy silliness and harder sad moments. It is also not easy to convincingly sing badly but not badly enough to stop listening entirely. A neat trick.
I think some of the subplots suffer because there are a few too many of them. The movie reminds us of Lucien and Hazel and others suddenly as though it realized they had been forgotten. But I think the movie has a bit of problem with balancing things. It’s over two hours long, and I would certainly say that that length was not needed. Exactly what to cut I’m not sure about, but the movie took a long time to get going.
I guess I’m not sure who would really enjoy this movie. I liked it just fine, but this kind of charming, foreign, odd duck of a movie isn’t for most people. Perhaps if you hear “French version of Florence Foster Jenkins” and are curious, you may like it. Just get ready to read subtitles for two hours.
Did you see Marguerite? Tell us what you thought in the comments below.
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