Florence Foster Jenkins opened nationwide yesterday. So, in traditional fashion, I met up with Scooter and his new beau, Joe (copycat), to take in the movie for a second time. In a much larger theater than the one (my) Joe and I experienced in London, what most struck me about this second viewing is how truly funny the film is. I recall a fair amount of giggling in London, but this time people were doing what I call the "quiet laugh," where they're laughing so hard you don't really hear much actually coming out after a while. This made me laugh harder as well, particularly after a few of the sort of 'barks' that come out of Meryl's mouth during her Carnegie Hall performance.
The theater wasn't completely full, and of course our trio was probably on average fifteen years younger than the majority of viewers, but that's typically standard operating procedure for many Meryl films. In general this encore experience solidified for me that not only is Florence a great film, but that Meryl's performance is truly astonishing. Specifically how challenging, and therefore how impressive it is to achieve the nuanced "badness" of singing she was adept at portraying. On multiple occasions last night I found myself thinking "nobody else could do that."
Its opening night gathered a modest $2 million on a total of about 1500 screens...half the number of theaters for the six films above it Friday night. Hopefully everyone gets out there and sees it!
I was taken aback by the total gross this weekend - I will admit I expected higher. Not sure why the film hasn't done better business to be honest as it's such a good summer movie.
ReplyDeleteI read one column which suggested a film set in the arts amongst New York high society might be a bit "high brow" for an August audience - who knows?!
Mainly disappointed in the fact it had fewer screens than the others though - let's hope they roll it out to more over the coming weeks as more people deserve the opportunity to see it!
At least it's now certified fresh on RT with warm reviews pouring in and much praise for Meryl!
As we've seen over and over again her films tend get good crowds during the week and can remain consistent for weeks. Hopefully we see a decent finish for this gem.
Agreed that I thought this would start better than Ricki and the Flash. I guess it's possible that this will have better word-of-mouth increase. But yes, it's great that the film itself and Meryl are getting such nice critics' notices.
DeleteOk..this may sound silly but a big reason for the box office drop for Streep is because of her outspoken political views. She never used to speak up about these things and ever since the Disney incident I know a LOT of people who will never go see her movies again. I have heard it in theaters over and over again people saying they will not go to her movies now that she speaks out politically and so many people I know personally. I went to see Florence over the weekend and thought it was a very lovely movie. People want to be entertained...we hear enough political junk and don't want to hear it (from either point of view) from movie stars..yes they are entitled to their opinion. I am not affected in going to see her movies I am just stating what I have observed and heard by so many.
ReplyDeleteGood Riddance....they can stay home then!- Jamie
DeleteIf people choose to not support someone's movies because they disagree with their political views or deny them the right to speak out I for one would be glad not to have to share a movie theatre with them!
DeleteI do find it a little hard to believe there are so many of these small-minded people to begin with though! Plus Meryl was always political in her own way anyway and she expresses her views much more eloquently than a lot of other political animals..
http://www.out.com/michael-musto/2016/8/15/inside-disarm-hate-rally-dc-tears-and-hope
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