What she lacked in talent, her lavish bank account made up for. Few were more so than New Yorker Florence Foster Jenkins, whose inherited fortune enabled her to pursue an operatic career—without being able to sustain a note. What's more: In 1944 she even performed at Carnegie Hall and played a record with eerily shaky arias.
Now cult director Stephen Frears ("The Queen") is setting a cinema monument to this unwavering dreamer - with a nuanced Meryl Streep in the leading role. At her side: Hugh Grant as St. Clair Bayfield, an actor who, as Jenkins' husband and manager, tries everything to keep malice and scathing newspaper reviews away from her. A heart-rending, tragi-comic story about desire, reality and the gray areas in between.
The fashion side of the film is also interesting: costume designer Consolata Boyle ("The Iron Lady") drew inspiration from photographs by Foster Jenkins, which captured her idiosyncratic, exuberant style: somewhere between a Mexican lady-of-play and 18th-century ball gowns. The self-proclaimed opera diva with the ringing voice even designed a pair of angel wings for one of her concerts.
Consolata Boyle: “She was a brilliant interpreter and her wardrobe was absolutely outstanding . Completely kitschy but at the same time with a delicacy that attracted people. And she wasn't shy at all!” To make Meryl Streep's slim frame match the wealthy siren's fuller frame, Boyle stuffed her clothes with a few extra pounds of stuffing.
The film "Florence Foster Jenkins" was released in the UK at the beginning of May, premiered in the USA in August and will be released in German cinemas on November 24th.
