Movies you might have missed: Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep as a terrible opera singer

The recent BBC series A Very English Scandal was a breath of fresh air. A wildly entertaining romp focused on the Jeremy Thorpe scandal of the 1970s, the show boasted a miraculous turn from Hugh Grant in the lead and sterling work from director Stephen Frears. The pair have collaborated previously, on Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), another biographical comedy drama in which it is clear that the truth is often far stranger than any fiction.

Meryl Streep plays the title character, a wealthy New York heiress who lived her life according to a very simple philosophy: “People may say I couldn’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.” Despite an acute lack of ability, Florence was determined to perform opera in public like some kind of 1940s socialite version of Jonny Rotten.

Generally considered the worst opera singer in history, it has been said of the amateur soprano that “no one, before or since, has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation”.

In Streep’s hands, the portrayal is never mocking. The “singer” may well have been aware of her limitations but that didn’t stop her trying and there’s something profoundly liberating about that. Grant plays her husband and manager, St Clair Bayfield, a complex and contradictory figure who didn’t sleep with his wife but clearly cared enough about her to try and spare her feelings from being hurt by critics.

Streep and Grant are ably supported by Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory as a pianist attempting to save his own reputation by transforming his protégée’s abilities ahead of a concert at Carnegie Hall. As the old joke goes, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. Florence, however, had the means to simply book the venue and give away tickets to soldiers.

At the film’s conclusion, we are treated to audio footage of the real Florence singing and informed that the Carnegie Hall recording remains one of the most requested in the venue’s archive. Naturally there’s an element of mockery but, as with The Disaster Artist, there is something warmer at this film’s core. Florence Foster Jenkins is about delusions of grandeur but, above all else, it’s about somebody having fun and living their dream regardless of the consequences.

The heroine may not be an artistic inspiration but she unquestionably lived her life in an admirable manner. This is a touching, humane film about a truly unique figure and it is little wonder that David Bowie named the soprano’s self-titled LP as one of his favourite records of all time.