"Marguerite" is a very well crafted French film. It's lovingly filmed and has a lot of wonderful aesthetic qualities. However, it's also a film that ultimately left me dissatisfied as the payoff wasn't at all what I would have anticipated...or enjoyed.

The Baroness Marguerite Dumont has the delusion that she has a beautiful singing voice and she dreams of becoming a world famous opera singer. When the film begins, she does a recital and the audience behave as if she is gifted...but she sounds much like an animal being tortured! Why each of these people go along with the ruse is uncertain but you can only assume many of these folks genuinely like her and don't want to spoil her dream. However, there are also those with hidden motives...such as the husband who is cheating on her as well as the Dadaist artists who believe anti-art and want to provoke audiences to hate her. What's to become of her and her plans of one day doing a giant recital in a real concert hall for the public?

This film seems, at times, like it's trying to be a comedy...albeit a dry one. After all, the name Marguerite Dumont appears to be a nod to the lady who co-starred in so many Marx Brothers films, Margarite Dumont. And, at times it seems like it's all a big joke. But ultimately the film becomes serious and a bit depressing...and left me feeling extremely dissatisfied. Still, it did take a risk and looked nice...but that's just not enough for me to recommend it.

Biographical films can be really good and intriguing when done well, and there are a number of great ones out there as well as a few disappointing ones.

There are better biopics overall than 'Marguerite', and there is a preference for 2016's 'Florence Foster Jenkins', also about a notoriously bad singer and one of my personal favourites of 2016. However, it is very much a winner with many fantastic things.

'Marguerite' does fall too much in mawkish and slightly heavy-handed melodrama in the final act, and the aspiring young singer subplot doesn't slot into place as much as it should. Same with a few of the characters, some more interesting and serving more purpose to the story than others.

However, 'Marguerite's' pros far outweigh the cons, and when the film is at its best it's very good indeed and often even better than that. It's lovingly filmed and lavishly staged with gorgeous settings, scenery, colours and costumes that capture the era brilliantly and evocatively. The music is magnificent even when it's butchered.

Xavier Giannoli clearly put a lot of thought into the direction and handles the themes and any tone shifts and the numerous sub-plots often very well indeed, succeeding in keeping the story compelling and not feeling cluttered or too stretched. The script is intelligent with an ideal balance of humour and pathos, the humour very funny and the pathos heart-rending.

Like with 'Florence Foster Jenkins', it is easy making this sort of character interesting or easy to sympathise with and oddly wanting them to succeed. 'Marguerite' actually does a great job with that. This is also largely down to the lead performance of Catherine Frot, which is truly superb and captivates the viewer throughout the length. The rest of the performances are also very impressive, but it's Frot who lives in the memory the most.

On the whole, lavish, intelligent and absorbing, Frot and the production values particularly coming off well. With a stronger final act and more consistently with a couple of the sub-plots and the characters it could have been a wonderful film instead of an overall very good one. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Never mind the parallels other reviewers have given to the American singer Florence Foster Jenkins. Director Xavier Giannoli has created a marvelous story which is operatic in it's own right! "Marguerite" is both funny and tragic as can be found in many classic operas. Catherine Frot brings the character Marguerite to life in such a believable way the viewer feels sorrow for her self imposed delusions on her ability to sing and her inability to see how her husband uses her and her so called society friends cater to her delusions even tho they themselves are laughing behind her back.

Her devoted butler, Madelbos, sees her as she sees herself - a grand opera singer who has performed all the great operatic female roles to perfection. Thus all the care and detail he contributes in her costumes and photos of her as if she actually performed these roles. Since her husband avoids her Marguerite has placed life into Madelbos's hands. Enter the two young journalist who meet Marguerite by sneaking into her estate during a fancy party to raise funds for the War Orphans charity. These two young men are very involved with the post WWI avant-garde movement in Paris and they find Marguerite to be both anti-establishment and uproarious. They write a glowing but tongue-in-cheek review of her singing. She reads it and is so taken with these two young men she befriends them and they in-turn introduce her to the underground art movement in Paris at that time. These people accept her as a performance artist and take her to heart.

So now Marguerite finds herself in two worlds, 1. The established moneyed society which patronize her and 2. The avant-garde art underground youth art culture. She experiences happiness, ambition, and excitement. Of course all this comes crashing down around her and she breaks under the reality. Her husband learns the hard way that he really loves her but it is too late. Her butler Madelbos could see this eventual end and is prepared to capture this bitter sweet moment.

What a wonderful movie, story, vision, Xavier Giannoli has brought to the screen. A delight to see, maybe painful to hear at times, but your heart will ride with Marguerite through her highs and lows, and be broken along with her friends that believed in her.

Bravo!!!