Simon Helberg in ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’, Alongside Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant

Upon watching Florence (2016) again, I have a new favorite actor. It’s Simon Helberg, who may very well earn an Oscar in the future. Here’s why. Includes spoilers.

Article originally published in Counter Arts on Medium on August 11, 2023.

The first time I watched Florence, in a movie theater, I laughed so very hard when Meryl Streep started to sing, even though as an audience we’d been cued in that Florence Foster Jenkins was, indeed, quite ill — and not only from the syphilis, it may appear, given that she took mercury and arsenic for it (as was the treatment at the time).

When the movie starts, Florence — based on the real Florence Foster Jenkins — is in her early seventies and suffering from second-stage syphilis. She is on the portly side and carries her illness bravely, even indulging in emotional agitation, something that one of her doctors warned her about. (Of course the doctor would say that, I thought, but as this illness affects the nervous system and body in ways that are still not completely understood, there may be some truth in that as well, just as there is, in fact, some of it in mercury and arsenic, however toxic they may be.)

Both following and ignoring doctor’s orders, Florence is living life to the fullest, alongside her loyal husband, St. Clair Bayfield, played by Hugh Grant. Well, “loyal” in a manner of speaking, because they don’t have sex and St. Clair has his “bit” on the side. But he is, in fact, very devoted to Florence, often trying to minimize her social embarrassment. Her voice is often flat and cracking, but she insists on singing on a stage, and St. Clair does all he can to make it possible in the smoothest of ways. He bribes journalists, buys up stacks of newspapers that may have unfavorable reviews, and chases journalists who are not willing to be bought, trying to make them more amenable to Florence’s cause, which seems to be self-expression through music, no matter what, as well as supporting true musical greats.

Of course, Florence is not really aware that she’s a little on the side of awful, because she studies canto with greats like Arturo Toscanini (now and then), who don’t have the heart to put her in her place. And then there’s the question of her money, which helps to make possible certain shows at a time when there was still a war in Europe (the movie takes place in the 1940s).

When I first saw it, I saw it more as a comedy than a drama, even as the end was rather moving in a tragic sense: tragic because Florence was brought down by her hubris. But the second time I watched it, I was more moved to sadness than to laughter. Or maybe it was a combination of both, which is clearly the expression that registers on Hugh Grant’s face in moments when he watches Florence sing.

But, however magnificent Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant are in this movie, the show wouldn’t be complete without Simon Helberg (of The Big Bang Theory fame), in the role of Cosmé McMoon, a pianist down on his luck (much as St. Clair had been before him) who is hired by Florence to accompany her work as a coloratura soprano. (Meryl Streep had learned nine opera arias for her role.)

When Florence starts belting the first notes of her first aria accompanied by McMoon — the only way she knows how to sing one, besides mumbling her words together — the pianist’s face registers an impressive amount of surprise in a rather subdued expression. Meryl Streep playing Simon Helberg in that bit was truly a scene to behold.

Throughout the movie, Simon Helberg’s facial expressions reverberate humor in a very contagious way. I remember how the first time I watched the movie I was completely taken with the way he tried to hide his laughs in an elevator once, and then with the way he expressed his shock rather too frankly to St. Clair, also in an elevator. I won’t give you the quotes (they wouldn’t give justice to the scene anyway), but here’s a clip.

I was also enamored with the way he plays the piano. He’s a trained pianist, but he plays with the kind of dexterity and attention to nuance that you’d expect from someone who does that all the time, not from a busy actor who plays piano on the side as well! And he also has a black belt in karate!

Talk about being an accomplished actor! Who, by the way, is a star not only as Howard Wolowitz in The Big Bang Theory but also as an actor doing impersonations! Here’s a clip of him impersonating Nicolas Cage, Billy Baldwin, and Ben Stiller.

He’s also sharp-witted and fun in interviews. He probably needs more of the experience Hugh Grant has accumulated by now in such settings, but watching him interact with interviewers is fun. You can tell he’s a kind man, in no way putting on airs, and actually quite modest, even as he is also confident and, at times, really enjoying himself.

Both Simon and Hugh Grant talk about how daunting it was to perform alongside Meryl Streep, who is truly dancing in the stratosphere both in movies and in interviews. She has such an effortless grace about her that you begin to stop wondering at her ginormous tally of Oscar nominations (21 of them — 17 of which have been for Best Actress). In fact, you begin to question why she was awarded an Academy Award only three times!

Speaking of questions, I liked something Hugh Grant — or was it Simon? — said in an interview, namely that the movie is more of a question than an answer when it came to St. Clair and others’ protective behaviors around Florence. After rewatching the movie, it does seem that way, yes. Of course it wasn’t right for Toscanini to butter her up (in his own, evasive way), but in the end, a harsh review kills the woman — so was that critic morally in the right to impinge his criticism on a frail woman without considering her condition and the fact that his review may cause great harm? I think not. (He could have given a negative verdict if he wanted, but a little bit differently. Instead, he called her “the worst singer in the world” — with a question mark not to mitigate his pronouncement, but to emphasize it.)

The movie does suggest, through the hectic gestures of one music manager before Florence’s concert, that she was messing with the whole cachet of “Carnegie Hall.” You don’t want people of great wealth to impose their way around to the point of buying ludicrous shows there.

But I guess you could pretend this was just a comic act. Some people actually treated it as such, unable to fathom that Florence thought she was the real deal, and we do see some of these people in the movie, adding with their comments another layer to this judgment of whether it was right to coddle Florence, spare her the truth, or maybe it would have been better to crush her dreams as the singer from the start.

It’s probably fitting that at the end she imagines herself with angel wings, which may also point to the wings of a dreamer.

As the director Stephen Frears makes clear in Florence, this was not a movie about a woman’s bad singing, but about her joy as a singer, a joy she wanted to share with others as well.

It was also, as Stephanie Jensen-Moulton aptly put it, about a woman who was trying to pour forth joy out of a body riddled with disease, to make her battered body productive and, essentially, breathe in freedom and joy.

In fact, Florence Foster Jenkins may not have been so deluded, after all. The film suggests that she may have been a good pianist once, as evidenced by the fact, mentioned in the movie, that she had played at The White House when she was eight. Then the nerves of her left hand were damaged, and she turned to singing instead, mostly as part of the benefits given by Verdi Club, a musical society she founded. (Where, it should be added, sometimes St. Clair spoke his overemphatic monologues, even though he was aware of not being that great an actor.)

Still, Florence’s pitch — and her phrasing and diction — was off. So this is a conundrum. Maybe, Meryl Streep says, she was deluded about her abilities because of her treatment for syphilis, which may have affected her mind in insidious ways.

But she was a generous woman and quite perceptive at times, which is why after hearing a comment by Mr. McMoon, she decided to include him in her will. It was a small comment compared to the encouraging words she heard from Arturo Toscanini and one other of her vocal coaches, also an important figure in the music world (though not, by any measure, of the caliber of Toscanini), but for a brief moment the veil of delusion was parted and she noticed the heartfelt support of Cosmé McMoon, who, like so many around her, including other socialite ladies, must have come to love her — which is why, despite considering himself a “serious” pianist and composer, he trampled on his ambitions for a certain image and kind of success to accompany her at Carnegie Hall.

It is a fun movie to watch — and watch again — and there’s something about the frames and close-ups and the whole cadence of scenes (and the rhythm of each one of them) that make me think this could be Stephen Frears’s signature. I’ll have to watch more of his movies because I’ve watched only two movies of his, and even those partially, when I caught them on TV. Now I’m hooked.

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Thank you for reading! As always, pins and shares are much appreciated!

To a happier, healthier life,

Mira