61.) Florence Foster Jenkins [9/4/2016]

There certainly needs to be a bio-pic about the most requested recorded performance at Carnegie Hall, and such a movie would have been smart to cast both Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant as the titular character and her philandering husband, St. Clair Bayfield. Jenkins was an interesting character: a pianist of some repute (played for the president at age 8) who was stricken with syphilis and lost her ability to play. She went on to then use her inheritance to float the high-art music scene in New York during the war. Because of her patronage, no one wanted to be overly honest with her, and thus she believed she could sing quite well. Her husband went to great lengths to keep her in the dark about her singing ability.

There is a really interesting story here at the cross-section of art, war-time economics, personal confidence, fidelity, and talent. There has to be a reason why Jenkins's record, which was objectively terrible, is the best selling album in Melotone Recordings Catalog. There has to be a reason her performance at Carnegie Hall is the most requested recording from their archive. Something about this woman spoke to the nation at a time when there seemed to be nothing positive happening. 

The actors did their best with the script (Streep and Grant were amazing; Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg was okay), but it never quite examined the metaphorical value of Jenkins's career. The audience's surrogate, Cosme McMoon (played by Helberg), never seemed to realize the importance of the singer's performance, and instead focused on his own successes which came by riding her coattails. I left the film thinking it was interesting, but not sure why it was important.