The good Joanna Lumley provides one other blowsy, foul-mouthed grump to the customarily hilarious third act of her profession as she steals the operatic comedy “Falling for Figaro.”

However because of the atonal script and flat performances round her, that by no means quantities to greater than petty theft.

A skinny comedy about following one’s desires, regardless of the chances, and reaching for the excessive notes, it solely often hits the appropriate notes. It’s not that the singing and would-be romance in it’s too sharp. The filmmakers rub all the perimeters off, decreasing the stakes and rendering the entire affair much more drab than its colourful setting.

Aussie actress Danielle Macdonald (“Patti Cake$”) performs Millie, an American fund supervisor making hay in a London agency and dwelling with the bloke (Shaza Latif) who had the great sense to rent her. However she’s bored sufficient by the work and the cash to show down a plum promotion.

“I’ve all the time wished to be an opera singer,” she abruptly declares.

“You imply, like within the bathe?”

As this isn’t “only a whim,” she’s suggested to hunt out a former diva-turned-vocal coach, Meghan Geoffrey-Bishop (Lumley of “Completely Fabulous”) within the hinterlands of tiny Drumbuchan, Scotland, a one-pub/inn village the place the chef, handyman and bellman is the “retired” Geoffrey-Bishop’s solely different pupil.

Max (Hugh Skinner) has dreamed Millie’s dream loads longer than her. He’s been taught, berated and coached by Geoffrey-Bishop for years, and nonetheless hasn’t fairly “received it.”

Each of the aspiring singers hope to launch their careers by way of a nationwide “Singer of Renown” new expertise competitors.

A couple of blasts of profanity, a “full beginner” dig about her “simply above karaoke customary” voice, and the teachings and “competing” start, with hapless Max falling for the girl who figures on stealing his dream.

“Falling for Figaro” goes off the rails, virtually proper from the beginning. Millie’s beau, Charlie, could go to sleep on the operas she insists on attending. However he’s in any other case supportive. There’s no edge to the character and little battle or sense that she wants to return to her senses about her dream or about him.

The gamers don’t do their very own singing, which is comprehensible. They don’t have any chemistry, which isn’t.

The plot has Millie wowing the “Singer of Renown” judges and “going viral” with a Mozarted-up rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” which is the movie’s cutest contact.

However the concept the scheming instructor decides that her two pupils want to interrupt every others’ hearts a little bit to make them extra empathetic performers and lift the stakes is meekly set-up and dealt with. No point out is fabricated from why this could work, not even noting how dramatic and tragic the actual lifetime of a Maria Callas was, informing her artwork.

The singing isn’t dramatic or thrilling, and the “competitors” is drably introduced.

Macdonald first gained discover with a personality and a movie that have been “on the market,” “Patti Cake$.” She’s to be counseled for elbowing her approach out of her zaftig, brazen and humorous area of interest (“Dumplin’,” “Poker Face”). However there’s nothing to Millie. All Macdonald’s attention-grabbing edges are rubbed off like just about all the opposite characters within the film.

“Falling for Figaro” wastes some fantastically soggy Scottish places and pointed character turns by Lumley and veteran actor Gary Lewis because the proprietor of The Filthy Pig Inn and Pub by merely by no means amounting to something anyone would need to spend money on.

Ranking: unrated, grownup conditions, profanity

Solid: Danielle Macdonald, Hugh Skinner, Shaza Latif, Gary Lewis and Joanna Lumley.

Credit: Directed by Ben Lewin, scripted by Ben Lewin and Allen Palmer. An Umbrella, IFC launch on Netflix

Operating time: 1:44