Annette: The Strangest Movie of the Year
The release of Leos Carax’s Annette drew many comparisons to La La Land, a 2016 movie musical directed by Damien Chazelle with a 100% success rate at making me cry. However, going into Annette expecting anything similar to Chazelle’s Oscar-winner is a mistake.
To give a brief summary of Annette is a virtually impossible task and a defeat I have faced many times when trying to get friends to watch it. At the most basic level, the film centers around a couple, played by Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, at the peak of their fame and the way they deal with the spotlight. Cotillard plays a world-famous opera singer, Ann Defrasnoux, and Driver, a Bo Burnham-esque comedian -- his stand-up routine is more theater than stand-up -- named Henry McHenry. To say anymore would be to say too much. This film, more than any, should be seen with minimal prior knowledge of the plot (an ironic thing to say at the start of a review of it).
The acting in the film is admirable. I once again find myself exceedingly impressed with Adam Driver’s abilities, and Cotillard is just as imposing.
Annette’s soundtrack is solid. Titles like “So May We Start” and “We Love Each Other So Much” have stuck in my head since I first saw the film a few weeks ago, but many of the songs are underwhelming and forgettable. And while Driver had not been a singer prior to this film, other than that one scene in Marriage Story, I feel his lack of vocal talent fits perfectly with his character, Henry McHenry. The imperfections in his voice match the flaws that Henry possesses.
Annette is definitely the weirdest movie I have seen this year; it might even hit Top 3 Weirdest Ever. It feels like if David Lynch directed a musical prequel to Marriage Story. The oddity comes from the subtleties of the film, not from its technical aspects. The film is 141 minutes long and for just under 40, it felt like a normal, romance/drama movie with an interesting take on fame. Once their puppet baby was born, the movie shifted. The next 100 minutes were the longest, most grueling, and enjoyable hour and forty minutes I have ever experienced. The final hour explores the afterlife, revenge, failure, confrontation, artistic exploitation, and a typhoon. But again, I must say no more.
I do have my criticisms, though. The film gets off to a slow start, in fact, the pacing throughout most of the film felt pretty inconsistent. On the second viewing, I really felt the runtime, but that might be natural for any second viewing of a movie.
At times, the film is very on-the-nose; instead of letting the audience figure out certain thematic presences, they are often right there in the lyrics (i.e. the song titled “We Love Each Other So Much”). I also found Annette to be, at times, very funny, although I do not think that was the intention of the filmmaker. The perfect example of this is when, a few minutes after Annette is born, Adam Driver holds her up, looks towards camera, and says, “This is my baby.”
The film has its highs and lows, but its highs are higher than its lows are low. Specifically, I found the sequence in which Henry begins to struggle with fame and his ability to make the audience laugh to be compelling. It was interesting to see the character deal with, like many celebrities, a decline in popularity; Henry can no longer make the audience laugh with such ease as he used to (hence the title, “You Used to Laugh”). However, many of these critiques became apparent to me only upon a second viewing.
For many people, the fantasy world of Annette is a world that they do not want to spend much time in, and towards the end of the film, I included myself in that group. However, I am glad this movie was made. As strange as it was, I, for the most part, found myself enjoying watching it. Even as I find myself writing this review, I notice that it isn’t much of a review, but an effort to convince you to watch Annette.
Since I left the theatre a few weeks ago, I haven’t been able to get Annette off my mind. The film is as magnificent as it is silly, as avant-garde as it is ridiculous, and as astounding as it is gimmicky. More than anything, Annette is worth a watch and it’s on Prime Video for free.
By Daniel Rosen