Meryl Streep's
latest movie, Foster Florence Jenkins,
dazzles and enchants.
If you have a
penchant for the more classical line of music and of singing, then this will
not disappoint you. Actually, it is more about the technicalities of how to
prepare for a performance. There is much
fascinating rehearsal in this movie.
Our wealthy main
character Foster Florence Jenkins, played by Streep, is a woman of wealth whose love of music has
led her to create a forum for musical performances prior to and during the
second world war in Manhatten, USA. She
is a devotee, driven by all sorts of motives to spend her life supporting
musicians and theatrical artists through creating opportunities for
performances that she herself participates in.
Therein lies the
dilemma. The patron herself loves the theater and particularly music, with all
her heart. But is her strength of passion and devotion enough to earn her a
deserved place on the stage? We watch with mixed emotions throughout this
amusing and deeply poignant story as her struggle for expression and longing
for acknowledgement unfolds.
Hugh Grant to my
initial great dread, plays St Clair Bayfield, our heroin's apparently devoted
husband. I have seen Grant in a few movies and have always found his acting
flat, uninteresting and apathetic. Thankfully my fears were unfounded. He was
nothing short of stellar. He transformed himself into the character to the
extent that he was virtually unrecognizable - at least to me. In fact, in a
character constrained by high society English notions of proper conduct, he
managed to express the nuances of inner conflict, of being torn between all
sorts of desires and needs, with an intensity and subtlety of which I thought
he was not capable.
We enjoy their
marital relationship, as they did. We enjoy the challenges of their preparing
for performances, vastly enhanced by the wondrous piano playing and evolving
friendship with Cosme McMoon (played by
Simon Helberg the Howard Wolowitz of Big
Bang theory fame). You will barely recognize him here for as the pianist, he
plays the opposite character type -a highly anxious nerd who virtually
apologizes for existing. His social phobia is so severe that he can barely hold
eye contact let alone a conversation. But he can play like a genius and much of
the enjoyment of the movie is thanks to his mastery of the ivory.
This movie thrives
on social awkwardness, on the force of the unspoken, on the confusions and whirlpools of hints and innuendoes. Many of these moments cause hilarity and many touch
one deeply.
I have not waxed
enough about Streep's performance. I honestly think she is a mage and sage
combined. I will not give key information of the movie away, so suffice it to
say that the complexity of Foster Florence Jenkins is captured by Streep so
smoothly, that one might be misled by the character' s seemingly rather self-
absorbed personality. I can only urge you to not let your concentration slip,
as she reveals ever so slightly, the deeply buried emotions of her past,
desperately trying to meet the challenges of the present while maintaining the
required mask that polite and wealthy American society demanded.
I suspect that the
audience feels as many people around Foster Florence Jenkins felt; initially
charmed and periodically alarmed. We are taken on a journey leading through
amusing contortions of social confusions into layers of the different aspects
of love, loyalty and devotion. We are left feeling a profound sense of
admiration for this strange woman and of privilege at having had the chance to
share the tenderness of her life story.
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