The world's worst singer hits exactly the right note

Simon Helberg (l), Meryl Street and Hugh Grant

There was a time when director Stephen Frears was, if not quite an angry young man of British cinema certainly a fairly grumpy one. Films such as My Beautiful Laundrette, Prick Up Your Ears, and Dirty Pretty Things made important statements about the country we lived in and established his reputation.

Now as an elder statesman, although from brief dealings with him he won’t thank anyone for using that term, Frears has settled into a more accommodating career of quality middlebrow entertainment. Mrs Henderson Presents, The Queen, Philomena and others of his recent vintage are films aimed at the older audience. Frears fire may have dimmed, it still appears but only in flashes, but his talent has not.

His latest film Florence Foster Jenkins continues in that vein. Handsomely mounted, impeccably performed, and directed with consummate skill it charts a gentler path than others might around a story that manages be both touching and funny.

New York socialite and patron of the arts Florence Foster Jenkins was, reputedly, the world’s worst singer. When she sang dogs several streets away covered their ears. And yet she felt compelled to stage a grand solo performance at Carnegie Hall.

It is a story that has compelled film and theatre makers for years; the French film Marguerite is based loosely on Florence and Maureen Lipman played her on stage in Glorious!.

It would be easy to present Florence as a figure of fun to be mocked and ridiculed but debut feature writer Nicholas Martin’s screenplay takes a more nuanced view. Florence surely was not as unaware of her lack of ability as this film makes out, but that doesn’t stop Martin having a go at the petty corruption of the musical establishment who were happy to milk her considerable fortune and massage her ego.

Frears takes a middle path with the material. It could be savage, it could be pantomime, but here he brings the touch of the farceur presenting a story that always threatens to break into hysteria but happily manages to stay just within the boundaries. The ending is doubtless romanticised but by this stage Florence has earned it, and so has the audience.

Meryl Streep is marvellous in the title role. Again the temptation to go big has been resisted, just as she did in the underrated Julie and Julia, Streep takes a heartfelt view of her character. There is a tragedy at the heart of Florence’s story and while Streep is happy to play for the laughs when they are there, this sense of loss and resentment informs the performance and keeps it grounded and human.

There is wonderful support from Simon Helberg as her accompanist and some nicely judged cameos from Christian McKay, John Sessions, John Kavanagh, and a marvellous turn from David Haig.

The real surprise for me however was Hugh Grant as her husband and manager, St Clair Bayfield. Theirs was a complicated relationship but his love for her seems genuine and unconditional.

A failed Shakespearean, Grant has a lovely speech about realising that he was never going to be a great actor. However he also realised that being a good actor was enough, and realisation liberated his performance. Listening to the speech I couldn’t help but compare Grant’s own career; he would never be great but he could be good, and in this film he has the maturity and intelligence to be very good indeed.

A clash of comic book titans turns out to be a heroic success

There is a standard format in romantic comedies; couples either ‘meet cute’ or ‘meet angry’. The archetypal meet cute would be Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, the meet angry version is Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. The point is, however they meet, they are going to end up together.

There’s a similar trope in the comic book world when two heroes meet for the first time. The older one invariably assumes the new one is a villain; they fight, they discover the truth, they become allies, albeit grudgingly in some cases.

This is where we are in Captain America: Civil War. The title incidentally is something of a misnomer, this is an Avengers movie in all but name. It stands to reason, all the best Captain America comic stories are either set in World War Two or in the Watergate era and these themes have been covered in the first two films.

This time the Avengers are being held accountable for the collateral damage that has occurred on their watch. The film kicks off with another mission in Lagos which incurs huge loss of life, add to this the Chitauri attack in Avengers Assemble and the Sokovian debacle in Age of Ultron and it is obvious that the Avengers, in some eyes, pose a clear and present danger to those they are supposed to be protecting. Maybe no one thought through the notion that avenging generally involves someone dying in the first place.

Anyway they are to be brought under the control of the United Nations thanks to something called the Sokovian Accords and only to go into action when the UN decides. Iron Man is all for it since he is temporarily remorseful, Captain America on the other hand feels they should choose their own path. You could argue that this is a debate between social democracy and libertarianism but hey, this is a comic book movie after all. The politics don’t matter. 

What does matter is that, rather in the nature of a school playground, the two coolest kids pick sides. In the end Cap and his cronies are lined up against Iron Man and his acolytes. The results are spectacular.

Although their rivalry does not last long, especially when the real culprit is revealed, the big battle more than pays dividends. The fight scene at Leipzig Airport is one of the best action sequences of recent memory. Three new characters are introduced into the equation. There’s the joyous Spider-Man and the noble Black Panther, who we knew about, and a surprising third who made the seven-year-old inside me leap for joy to see one of his earliest fan faves on the big screen.

There is no war as such, more of a skirmish, albeit superbly staged. But the real pleasure of this film, and this is something you don’t often find in a comic book movie, is the script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Characters are defined and behave the way they should rather than the way the plot demands. In addition the film strikes a deft middle route between the ponderous self-importance of Batman vs. Superman and the constant wisecracking of Deadpool. It is a script of wit and intelligence and the Russo brothers do a fine job with the material.

It’s not without its flaws. The whole Howard and Maria Stark sub-plot feels wrong and forced, and it’s a bit of a shame to see Zemo – one of the great villains of the Marvel Universe – pressed into service here in such an underwhelming manner.

But these are minor points. Captain America: Civil War is the best comic book movie for years, possibly since Richard Donner’s Superman and, in a genre whose rules are constantly being rewritten, that is quite an accomplishment.