Here’s something you almost never see – a film where the female lead is both older than the male, and they are romantically attached. Seriously, see if you can think of any other movies where in terms of love interests the man was younger than the woman, while it’s almost par for the course that leading men get to star opposite a woman significantly younger than they are.
It is perhaps particularly interesting as in real life the characters Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant are playing were about the same age, so it’s a nice reversal of Hollywood’s usual tendency towards sexism.
The pic above is the first from Stephen Frears’ Florence Foster Jenkins, which tells ‘the true story of the legendary New York heiress and socialite who obsessively pursued her dream of becoming a great opera singer. The voice she heard in her head was beautiful, but to everyone else it was hilariously awful. Her “husband” and manager, St Clair Bayfield, an aristocratic English actor, was determined to protect his beloved Florence from the truth. But when Florence decided to give a public concert at Carnegie Hall in 1944, St Clair knew he faced his greatest challenge.’
Many believe that Florence’s inability to know how dreadful her singing was, was due to neuro-syphilis, but that probably won’t be mentioned in the movie.
The film is currently shooting.