Few things in our universe are more inevitable than Meryl Streep receiving Oscar nominations whenever she uses an accent in a film. Death, taxes, Meryl Streep accent Oscars—these are the immutable forces of our universe. And now Streep is back with her latest accent, which is a combination of “dotty old lady” and “faux-English aristocrat”. Streep stars as the title character Florence Foster Jenkins, an objectively terrible singer who used her inherited wealth to fund a career as an opera singer.
The film is from director Stephen Frears, who made The Queen and Philomena, but also the not so good Lance Armstrong biopic The Program, and Lay the Favorite, one of the worst movies I have ever, ever seen. So it’s a crap shoot with him. The trailer looks like your typical Oscar bait period costume drama about an uplifting story of perseverance, but that August release date says this probably won’t be mainline Oscar fare. You can never count out Streep With An Accent though.
The trailer touches on the fact that Jenkins was ill—she caught syphilis from her first husband, which may have contributed at least in part to her terrible singing voice. So is the movie going to go there? Or will her illness be kept sort of vague and let people assume she has a touch of the consumption? Because I’m way more into a movie about Meryl Streep slowly dying of syphilis than I am a movie about a rich lady who blew her fortune on self-publishing her awful opera records. But then, I’m not the target audience for this movie. The target audience for Florence Foster Jenkins is approximately ninety years old and has a dog named Georgette. Florence Foster Jenkins is sure to be your great aunt’s favorite movie this year. (Lainey: or my boss Morley who worships the Meryl.)
Attached below - Meryl at the London premiere of Florence Foster Jenkins earlier this month.
