MARGUERITE Review

French actress Catherine Frot gives a touching, masterful performance as the title character in director Xavier Giannoli’s tragicomic MARGUERITE. The lavish 1920s costume film centers on a wealthy baroness who loves music and fancies herself an opera singer. The problem is that she cannot sing and seems unable to hear her own off-key screeching. With her great wealth, generous support of causes and social position, no one tells her the truth.

MARGUERITE is a fictional film but the title character was inspired by real person, Florence Foster Jenkins, an American heiress famous for her awful singing and delusional belief in her talents who gave invitation-only concerts in elaborate costumes, which audiences viewed with a “so bad its good” appreciation. A biopic about Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep and directed by Stephen Frears, is due out later this year.

Giannoli and co-writer Marcia Romano move their story to 1921 France – the Roaring Twenties. The post-World War I era saw the rise of new art, fashions, pop culture and expansion of wealth, along with the fall of old class divides. It was the era of Dada art, anarchists and nihilists, the craze for silent movies and Charlie Chaplin, jazz and photography – all of which figure in this film.

MARGUERITE is a comic yet touching film delving into the power of self delusion and the love of art. Frot delivers a stunning performance as the title character, for which she won a Cesar, the French version of an Oscar. Through her skillful performance, we may laugh at Marguerite’s awful singing but not at the sweet, generous if deluded person behind the voice.

Frot plays Marguerite Dumont, whose name is almost certainly a reference to Margaret Dumont, the clueless foil in the Marx Brothers comedies, who lives in aristocratic country mansion with her husband of twenty years, Georges (Andre Marcon). Georges inherited the title of baron along with the mansion, but the money belongs to heiress Marguerite.

In a brilliant opening scene, we are introduced to Marguerite as the baroness is hosting a charity concert in her lavish home, to raise funds for World War I orphans. The concert is presented by their aristocratic friends in the Amadeus Music Club, which Marguerite supports financially while also appearing as a featured performer. Her husband Georges, embarrassed by her insistence on singing in public but unable to tell his wife the truth about her voice, disappears for these concerts, blaming his absences of trouble with his fancy sports car.

The concert features a young singer Hazel (Christa Theret) and a couple of her friends, journalist Lucien (Sylvain Dieuaide) and his friend and sometimes illustrator, Dada poet/nilhilist/anarchist Kyril (Aubert Fenoy), sneak in. Both Lucien and Kyril have come to hear Hazel but also to find out if certain rumors are true. A peacock’s screeching cry hints at what is to come.

The concert’s finale is the hostess’ performance, and Marguerite flutters around preparing for her aria, assisted by her devoted mysterious butler Madelbos (played by Belgian Congolese actor Denis Mpunga, with a near-wordless menace), and periodically asking whether her husband has shown up yet. Making a grand entrance like a diva used to singing before kings, she sings Mozart’s showy, difficult aria “Queen of the Night,” which she “executes” with a voice like a wild animal dragged to the guillotine. The audience stifles a few smiles but offers polite applause and carefully-worded neutral comments, an Emperor’s new clothes response for the major financial benefactor of their musical society. The concert concludes with a group photo taken by Madelbos, with Marguerite at the forefront.

With a child-like innocence, Marguerite lives in a bubble, surrounded by her beloved collection of opera costumes and scores and her delusion, devoting her life to music and her non-existent talent. The next day, the mansion is filled with white flowers from “anonymous admirers”- certainly her husband and butler. But while her husband’s lack of truthfulness about her voice makes him an enabler, her intimidating butler not only enables but orchestrates her self-delusion.

As her attentive butler/chauffeur/photographer, Madelbos organizes elaborate fantasy photo shoots for Marguerite, with props and costumes from great operas. He also shields her from any intrusion of the truth. When journalist Lucien, encouraged by the Kyril, who delights in the perfection of her awful voice, writes a mocking review of the concert, he offers ambiguous statements and sly commentaries that most readers would understand. Delusional Marguerite reads it as a rave review and wants to meet the author, but Madelbos carefully removes other, franker reviews from her sight.

For Marguerite’s screeching singing, the director mixed Frot’s own singing with a professional singing badly and some electronic manipulation, to create a hauntingly bad sound. The film does let us laugh at this absurd, eccentric character but we also eventually see the humanity underneath her grand delusion.

Unlike other films set in the ’20s, Giannoli uses muted colors that keep the tone of the film edgy, sometimes even sinister. On one level, “Marguerite” is a lavish costume drama set in an exciting time of change, and about class and the changes reshaping society after WWI. Yet it is also an exploration of the intersection of self-delusion and great wealth, and how people drawn to the latter can enable the former.

The film starts comic, then takes a darker turn. Everyone seems to want to use Marguerite for their own purposes, while child-like, sweet Marguerite is unfailing kind and generous. By the film’s midpoint, there is a shift, as those who initially laughed at her become fond, and seeming protectors reveal darker motives. Lucien introduces Marguerite to a financially-strapped, has-been opera star Atos Pezzini (Michel Fau), who is blackmailed into coaching Marguerite for a public performance. Pezzini auditions Marguerite in a hilarious scene, and then moves in with an assortment of assistants including a fortune-telling bearded lady (Sophia Leboutte) and a deaf accompanist, providing a new level of absurdity and a wonderful performance by Fau.

MARGUERITE is not a perfect film, although Frot’s performance is. The film runs a bit too long, has some subplots that add little to it, and the story unravels towards the end when it tries to offer a kind of explanation for Marguerite’s self-delusion. Still there is much to admire, particularly Frot’s wonderful performance.

MARGUERITE opens Friday, March 25th, in French with English subtitles, at the Plaza Frontenac Cinema

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS