FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS (2016)

Rated: PG-13

STARS: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg
DIRECTOR: Stephen Frears
GENRE: Comedy/Drama

Florence Foster Jenkins was an heiress and New York socialite whose life-long love of music spurred her to become an opera singer. Only trouble was, her "singing" would make alley cats plug their ears.

In Florence Foster Jenkins, Meryl Streep takes on an enormous challenge to come off as tone deaf as the real deal. (Check out the clip of the real Ms. Jenkins at the end of this review!) I'll give Streep a B+ on that score. It's DIFFICULT to sing badly...no, it's difficult to sing badly and sincerely--with a straight face. Streep, who is actually a good singer,  gives a yeoman's effort.

Hugh Grant plays her mate, the opportunistic St. Clair Bayfield, a failed Shakespearean actor who must have seen her as his meal ticket initially--they live in a posh New York hotel--but nonetheless possesses a sincere platonic devotion to the lady. So much so that he orchestrates her singing engagements and packs the house with friends and acquaintances he knows will lend a sympathetic ear. Everyone is expected to play along with the colossal delusion, as Florence is in ill health, and he wants her to spend her remaining days pursuing her dream.(What she's suffering from I will not reveal, because it's an audience "ooh" moment, and most reviewers today GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY--one of my recurring pet peeves.)

As good as Streep and Grant are in their roles--and they are superb--Simon Helberg, as Florence's fidgety and high-strung piano accompanist, Cosme McMoon, steals the show with his comically expressive mug and mannerisms. McMoon--reluctantly at first--backs Jenkins from her initial appearances before The Verdi Club (an organization she herself founded), to her crowning achievement--a 1944 engagement to a packed house at Carnegie Hall.

Florence Foster Jenkins is also a (probably unintentional) commentary on the ability of the rich to buy their way to the immortality of lasting fame, while the masses of  mere "mortals"--many with astounding  talents and abilities--quietly labor through lives of anonymity, their brilliance ultimately recognized by no more than family and friends. But that comes as an afterthought for me, as during the movie I was rooting for Florence all the way.

And while the film is a hoot on many levels, there are moments of unexpected poignancy that may leave you misty-eyed here and there. Because what glimmers through every pore of Florence Foster Jenkins is one person's lifelong love affair with music...and as we all know, love is blind.

Not to be missed!

Grade:  A

JILL'S TAKE

Damn! You stole my thunder, Tim. About the brilliance of Simon Helberg's Oscar-worthy performance? To set the record straight regarding how we write these reviews, Tim writes his impressions first and then I add my two cents afterwards. (Usually five!) I'm not in Tucson right now so we see these reviewable flicks separately. This time, my west coast film companion was quick to whisper in my ear that Simon Helberg has been wowing TV audiences for 10 Seasons in "The Big Bang Theory." What an expressive face!

Knowing the premise of Florence Foster Jenkins beforehand, I didn't think I'd enjoy being treated to an afternoon of off-pitch singing. How wrong I was! Meryl was magnificent as the barrel-sized would-be opera singer. I found myself feeling guilty for belly laughing at Ms. Jenkins' painful vocals, knowing how badly she wanted to be another Lily Pons. And I wasn't the only one in the audience laughing, either.

It reminded me of another film,The Producers – where Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder wanted to produce a bad musical, hoping it would be a flop so they could rake in the investors' money. Instead, it turned into a Broadway blockbuster. Same basic idea applies to Florence Foster Jenkins. For me, though, her popularity (albeit camp rather than coloratura) seemed to seriously stretch credibility. As did many of the other moments in this distinctly delightful film.

Kudos go out to British director Stephen Arthur Frears whose film credits include some of my all-time favorites: My Beautiful Launderette and Philomena. He was able to make an incredibly hard-to-believe situation mostly believable.

Grade: B+

CLOUD ATLAS (2012)

Rated: R

Stars: Tom Hanks,  Halle Berry,  Jim Broadbent,  Doona Bae,  Ben Whishaw, Keith David,  Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant
Directors: Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski
Genre: Drama / Sci-fi / Action-Adventure

The premise of Cloud Atlas--a sweeping, sprawling, romantic, ambitious, tour-de-force of a saga--is that souls are connected throughout their various physical incarnations by their deeds and misdeeds of the past, present and future.

That's what they call KARMA around these here parts, mister...poke a mule in the butt and you're likely to git a big kick out of it. (And that's called INSTANT karma!)

The film takes the scenic route (a bit under three hours) in illustrating the point, which is no big "aha" moment for anyone with a spiritual bent toward the east, but it might give Joe and Jane Sixpack some food for thought--if you could somehow kidnap them and pull them kicking and screaming out of the latest vampire movie,  and promise that you will remove the duct tape from their mouths if they will only give a thoughtful film a chance.

There are six story lines featuring the same actors in multiple roles as different versions of themselves during various eras of history. The makeup artists had a field day, as some of the actors are unrecognizable as themselves unless you squint and look real close. I kept saying THIS guy looks so familiar...in a way...OMG--IT'S HUGH GRANT! 

Tom Hanks and Halle Berry's characters, for example,  interweave and get to hang out with each other wearing the "masks" of each incarnation as another personality.  He plays a gangster, a primitive tribesman, and a doctor--among others; she is a 20th-century journalist, a Jewish-German woman, and a plantation slave.   

I'm only going to touch the surface here...ain't going to describe each story line...it's better if you just wade into it,  like I did,  and be swept away on the tide of some brilliant film making from the team that brought you The Matrix. It's great excitement and fun, if you don't try to over think it and keep track of everything that is going on without getting overwhelmed--which you will be at times--and that's why a second and maybe even a third viewing of Cloud Atlas would undoubtedly reveal more nuance and meaning, if you want to take it that far. 

Another theme of the movie pops up in the Darwinian mantra: The weak are meat and the strong shall eat. I guess this was a way of preparing us for some of the graphic violence that appears at certain junctures in Cloud Atlas--which was the only thing in the film that I began to question after a while. Just be forewarned that there is more blood spilled here than in your average slasher movie, though it never feels like it is there simply for its own sake. 

What impressed me the most about Cloud Atlas was the feeling I got that everyone involved in this monumental  endeavor--which, surprisingly, only took about a year to complete from the beginning of filming--was dedicated to the vision of making something truly noteworthy out of  David Mitchell's ponderous 2004 novel. 

On that level, they succeeded.

Grade: A -

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? (PG-13)

STARS: Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker

DIRECTOR: Marc Lawrence

It's an intriguing concept. A successful Manhattan couple, Paul and Meryl Morgan, (Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker) who are separated cuz she discovered that he did the nasty with another woman, witness the murder of a guy with mob connections. The hit man gets a good look at their faces, and later tries to track them down. So the government puts them in the federal witness protection program and ships them off to Where The Hell Am I, Wyoming. Thrown together again by fate, Paul attempts, awkwardly, to patch up their relationship, amidst ideology and culture clash with the local rednecks, who have little empathy for alternative lifestyles (she's a vegetarian and a PETA supporter) . Meanwhile, the relentless killer is on their trail, and it's only a matter of time before he sniffs them out.

But Did You Hear About The Morgans? is like a Cliff Notes version of a movie, with characters and a plot that aren't completely fleshed out. Meryl has strong convictions, but we're not shown what led her to them--the couple don't even have a cute little dog or a cat or a baboon or a marmoset, as far as we can tell. It's not surprising, though, that the omission was made, as mainstream film makers like to portray vegetarians as being airheads.

Hosted by local U.S. Marshal Clay Wheeler (Sam Elliott) and his Annie Oakley wife Emma, (Mary Steenburgen) our hapless couple is holed up in a cabin with animal trophy heads on the walls and a refrigerator crammed with meat. This sets up the "city slickers out of their element" gag to play throughout the rest of the film. To his credit, writer-director Marc Lawrence (Miss Congeniality) keeps the relationship theme central to the story, rather than turning the movie into an early referendum on the 2012 election--with a wild-eyed, moose blasting Sarah Palin battling for our hearts and minds against the progressive-minded Obamas (Michelle doesn't wear fur) . Both sides stick to their guns and the ideological divide is played mostly for chuckles.

But Did You Hear About the Morgans? takes too many shortcuts--as in when Paul encounters a cranky bear outside the cabin. Meryl, from inside, tries to relay instructions to him on what to do. He's caught between freezing in place or running for his life. It's an amusing bit (as only Grant can pull it off) until you detect that they've resorted to one of the oldest and cheapest cinematic tricks in the book--and that is to superimpose Paul against the backdrop of a screen (like they do with your local TV weatherman) where the bear is snarling menacingly, but Hugh Grant as Mr. Morgan is in no real danger because he's off in a studio somewhere. (Geez...you'd think they could have paid a stunt guy to have a fake tussle with a trained bear, for the sake of realism.) There IS some real courage demonstrated, though, and it comes from Sarah Jessica Parker, who allows herself to be filmed on a city street in the rain, with drenched hair and wearing no makeup. Sans cosmetics, she is strikingly plain-Jane. But it's another bogus scene cuz no upscale Manhattan babe is gonna be caught dead looking that way in public !

Did You Hear About the Morgans? isn't the worst movie I've ever seen...it's just the worst Hugh Grant or Sarah Jessica Parker movie I've seen.

GRADE: C +