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Marguerite Cohen Media Group Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya, d-based on Rotten Tomatoes Grade: A- Director: Xavier Giannoli Written by: Xavier Giannoli, Marcia Romano Cast: Catherine Frot, André Marcon, Michel Fau, Christa Théret, Denis Mpunga, Sylvain Dieuaide, Aubert Fenoy, Sophie Leboutte, Theo Cholbi Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 3/3/16 Opens: March 11, 2016 I’ll bet you like to sing in the shower? Why? Because you sound terrific. You have fallen in love with your own voice. That’s because singers don’t really hear their own voices as others hear them. Nowadays it’s easy to record yourself, and a quick chorus in front of a Sony ICDPX333 voice recorder would quickly [ Read More ]

The post Marguerite Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

A bravura dramedy that beautifully balances tragedy and comedy and asks a tricky question: Is it better to be cynical about art, or happily undiscriminating? I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Very loosely inspired by the dubious art of American amateur opera signer Florence Foster Jenkins — soon to be the subject of a Stephen Frears biopic starring Meryl Streep — Marguerite is a marvel, a bravura dramedy that beautifully balances tragedy and comedy to the point where you can’t be sure which is which.

In Paris, 1920, socialite Marguerite Dumont (Catherine Frot, who won the César, the French Oscar, for her performance) does not see the sarcasm in a review by newspaper music critic Lucien Beaumont (Sylvain Dieuaide) of her screeching operatic performance at a private charity event. An ardent music lover and profoundly passionate collector of theatrical costumes,...

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.

Xavier Giannoli on the lie of Charlie Chaplin: "Everything is true in the Dada performance." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Tristan Tzara, Margaret Dumont and Groucho Marx, Robert Redford as Denys Finch Hatton in Sydney Pollack's Out Of Africa by Karen Blixen, Salieri and Mozart in Milos Forman's Amadeus, and Caruso the peacock helped to compose Xavier Giannoli's Marguerite, starring Catherine Frot with André Marcon, Aubert Fenoy, Michel Fau, Denis Mpunga, Sylvain Dieuaide and Christa Théret.

Meryl Streep in Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins, the next Steven Spielberg, Jeff Nichols, Midnight Special in Paris, Broadway Danny Rose, Woody Allen and Danny Kaye in Carnegie Deli and Carnegie Hall in New York excited the director during our conversation.

Hazel (Christa Théret) singing with Nedda (Petra Nesvacilová)

Anne-Katrin Titze: When did you first hear of Florence Foster Jenkins?

Xavier Giannoli: 15 years ago on the radio. I heard this...

Though she was popular nearly a century ago, Florence Foster Jenkins feels particularly relevant to modern art’s ongoing dialogue with awfulness as a version of the sublime. In another world, Xavier Giannoli’s prickly tragicomedy Marguerite could easily be an exercise in self-loathing in the same fashion as Rick Alverson’s films, but instead it’s a film whose virtues lies in a fierce neutrality towards its own subject. Even the characters who appear to be the most transparently kind or evil contain multitudes, and the film becomes a constant examination of its own tone.

As such, Marguerite is frantic and compellingly unpredictable, even as it heads into comfortable territory. Loosely based on the life of Jenkins, a ’20s-era socialite and Opera singer renowned for her supernaturally abhorrent voice (here’s a recording of her murdering every poor note of Mozart’s Der Hölle Rache), Marguerite follows Marguerite Dumont...

Sing the Body Apoplectic: Giannoli Pays Thanks to the Music

French director Xavier Giannoli borrows an obscure piece of American pop culture for his latest feature, Marguerite, a 1920s Parisian high society dramedy based loosely on the life and career of New England socialite Florence Foster Jenkins. Oblivious to her glaring lack of talent, the wealthy soprano was the source of rampant ridicule, her folly reaching an unmitigated apotheosis following a sold-out Carnegie Hall performance in an instance of truth being stranger than fiction. Resting beautifully on the masterful shoulders of Catherine Frot, an oft-Cesar nominated actress who hasn’t had the deserving international acclaim she’s due, the film’s success hinges delicately on her performance, even with a cadre of supporting players otherwise subjugated to empathetic cliché or predictably reprehensible conduct.

Marguerite Dumont (Frot) has staged a benefit concert at her home, a sprawling chateau outside of Paris.

Title: Marguerite Director: Xavier Giannoli Starring: Catherine Frot, André Marcon, Michel Fau, Christa Théret, Denis Mpunga, Sylvain Dieuaide, Aubert Fenoy, Sophia Leboutte, Théo Cholbi. The world has always been populated by talentless megalomaniacs. Usually most of these are attracted by the razzle dazzle of success, but very seldom there is a true passion for the arts that motivates them. This is not the case of Marguerite Dumont, a Baroness who lives for music and dreams of becoming an opera singer, but is totally tone-deaf. French director Xavier Giannoli shapes, with humor and sensitivity, the character of Marguerite into an utterly bighearted naive woman, who is led to believe she can  [ Read More ]

The post Marguerite Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

★★★☆☆ Set in 1920 and loosely inspired by the life of infamous soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, Marguerite (2015) is Xavier Giannoli's follow up to disappointing Superstar, which was in competition at Venice three years ago. Marguerite's main characters are wannabes who ultimately find themselves trapped in their own delusions. Marguerite Dumont (Catherine Frot) is an untalented opera singer who believes she has a wonderful voice, regularly performing for her aristocratic friends and behaving like a diva for her butler and amateur photographer Madelbos (Denis Mpunga). In this, she is a classic Giannoli character who falls victim to their own false beliefs.

Marguerite's rendition of Mozart's Queen of the Night sees her squawking throughout the whole aria, in one of the most hilarious, albeit ear-shattering, sequences seen in Venice so far and transformed what looked to be stiff period film into something altogether different. Marguerite is undeniably, and irreparably, tone-deaf, but...