Updated Roundup - New York Times & More Review FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS

The new drama comedy FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS hits theaters today, Friday August 12, 2016 from Paramount Pictures. Directed by Stephen Frears and written by Nicholas Martin, the film stars Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Nina Arianda.

Set in 1940s New York, Florence Foster Jenkins is the true story of the legendary New York heiress and socialite (Meryl Streep) who obsessively pursued her dream of BECOMING a great 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 (Hugh Grant), 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, St. Clair knew he faced his greatest challenge.

Let's see what the critics have to say:

Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times: Ms. Streep is a delight, hilarious when she's singing and convincingly on edge at all times. She gives us a woman who is tethered to reality just enough to function, but divorced from it just enough to be clueless about her lack of musical ability.

Leah Greenblatt, EW: Streep of course is impeccable at everything, including being awful, and Florence's loopy narcissism gets some needed context when the more tragic aspects of her past are revealed. Grant's tender, conflicted performance, though, is a small revelation; he's been given a much quieter instrument, but he plays it beautifully. (The Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg, as a fluttery, high-strung accompanist, has some great moments too, as does Tony winner Nina Arianda

Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal: This just in, yet again: Meryl Streep is remarkable. The latest showcase for her remarkableness is " Florence Foster Jenkins," a biopic set in the 1940s, and directed by Stephen Frears, about the self-invented opera diva whose hideous voice won her a place on the honor roll of American eccentrics. The movie is a pleaser, for the most part, even though the attitude it takes toward its subject is often problematic. Ms. Streep gives her heroine an inner life sustained by ardor for the vocal arts. She finds perfection in Florence's woefully imperfect pitch, tenderness in her sandpaper timbre, toughness in her ambition, and a special kind of artistic integrity in her dulcet delusions.

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Meryl Streep steps up to the plate with another cheerfully game performance in "Florence Foster Jenkins," a warm, generous-hearted portrait of the title character: a wealthy music aficionado who, in real life, became a cult figure in the 1930s and '40s with her earnest, wildly off-key singing.

Bill Wine, CBS: Three-time Oscar winner and nineteen-time nominee Streep is magnificent - shocker, huh? - in yet another "vocal" performance (alongside Into the Woods, Ricki and the Flash, and Mamma Mia!) that dares us to laugh at her while we're laughing with her, and acknowledging her naivete, her world-weariness, and her obvious delusions of grandeur... Meanwhile, both Grant and Helberg match her in support, the former turning in what might be a career best in a subtly layered, warts-and-all performance, the latter (best known for his funny work on television's The Big Bang Theory) marvelous as her accompanist and an aspiring composer who, when she sings, must look on in hilariously bemused horror.

Stephen Whitty, NJ.com: Meryl Streep plays Jenkins, and it's a brilliant bit of work - hard as it is to sing beautifully, it can be even harder to sing badly, at least for an accomplished vocalist like Streep. Yet she finds wonderfully comical ways to mangle every note, while still giving Jenkins a kind of blissfully oblivious, indomitable dignity. She's like Margaret Dumont, gamely pretending Groucho's insults are really compliments.

Anthony Lane, The New Yorker: The best news about "Florence Foster Jenkins" is that, just when admirers of Hugh Grant were asking if the poor guy would ever get a role of any ripeness, he plucks a peach. The dithering that bore him through "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994) and "Notting Hill" (1999) arose not merely from indecision but from a stutter of the spirit-a genuine horror of doing the wrong thing. That fear comes to fruition in St. Clair: his wife does wrong every time she opens her mouth onstage, but he reassures her, time and again, that she is in the right.

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Streep could be looking at her 20th Oscar nomination for bringing humor and feeling to a woman too easily dismissed as a ridiculous cartoon. An admirable singer herself, the actor skillfully scales her notes close enough to regulation to make the inevitable Jenkins crash into screech the antithesis of ear candy. It's a pitch-perfect portrayal of a woman for whom pitch is an alien concept. And yet Streep moves you for her celebration of the amateur's love of performance.

Peter Hammond, YahooTV: It could have been overly broad, but never goes there thanks to smart casting and great work from Frears, a sophisticated filmmaker of true stories like Philomena and The Queen who knows exactly what he is doing. Grant proves again what a sophisticated and terrific comedy actor he is.It is hard to imagine any actors in these roles other than Streep and Grant who have great on-screen chemistry.

Katie Rife: AV Club: If Frears and screenwriter Nicholas Martin had retreated further inward still, to explore how and why Florence got to the point where her whole life became an elaborate white lie, this could have been a great film. Instead, it's just a feel-good one.

Erich Hillis, New Jersey Stage: The film conveys the appeal of music in an explicit manner lacking in most biopics of genuinely talented performers. In many ways it could be considered a musical companion to Tim Burton's Ed Wood, as both movies are celebrations of talentless yet undoubtedly passionate figures.

Image courtesy of Paramount

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