In Florence Foster Jenkins, Streep played the polar opposite of a Callas–an untalented amateur who had no idea how ludicrous she was.
I knew I should see the film but I didn’t see it in a theater when it came out two years ago. Personally I find it almost painful to see great art forms reduced or ridiculed–and Jenkins is a fat target indeed. A Night at the Opera is funny and inoffensive because it exists amid an entire landscape of lunacy–but would this movie just curl its lip in disdain at the entire classical musical scene? I didn’t want to spend its duration sliding under the seat in front of me.
Instead I saw it on DVD not too long ago and was pleasantly surprised.
In the depths of the parody, you could still see the quality of what Jenkins was aspiring to, no matter how naively. She couldn’t get near the mountaintop, but her maladroit attempts to scale it allowed us to be able to see it too.
Dilettante Jenkins’ lack of self-perception was brutally apparent, as was her unfortunate legacy of a first marriage, but she didn’t become entirely ridiculous. Some human dignity was allowed her.
I know people who won’t see it for the same reasons that I was leery but I’ve said, “No, you should.”