Mark Reviews Movies: ANNETTE

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | August 5, 2021

The point of Annette, perhaps, is how fake it is, from its opening scene, in which the actors and songwriters sing and march from a recording and into the narrative, to its last, when a character is supposed to see at least a piece reality for the first time—but still performs the whole scene as a song. This is a stylish and stylistically daring movie, for sure. It's also an emotionally and thematically hollow one to the core.

It's directed by Leos Carax, a sporadic (at least in terms of features) but inventive filmmaker, who does his part here by creating a strange, occasionally fantastical world of fame and celebrity, high melodrama, and intentional fakery. Take one sequence, in which the doomed family at the center of this story—a bad-boy comedian, his renowned opera singer of a wife, their innocent daughter—go on a yacht trip to escape a leering, gossipy public and attempt to fix their seemingly broken marriage.

Carax doesn't film this sequence on location, nor does he use computer effects to create the boat and the storm in which the family finds itself. The former would be too real, and the latter might trick us into thinking the scene is the real deal. Instead, the director simply has the actors standing on a stage, dressed like the deck of a boat, as a rear-projection screen plays footage of massive waves (The boat sits fairly still and far below where it would be on the water) and, likely, a couple stagehands toss buckets of water in the set's general direction.

This is supposed to be fake, and we're supposed to know it. In case that scene or the many other similar examples here aren't enough evidence, there's the fact of the eponymous character, the daughter of famous couple. For the significant portion of her appearance in the story, that role is performed, not by an actor, but by a somewhat creepy puppet.

Many of the oddities and most of the major shortcomings here come, we suspect, don't come from Carax, who fashions this world and its various eccentricities with obvious care and cleverness. As the story's form quickly announces itself as a sung-through musical, the origin of this tale's multiple and most significant issues becomes apparent.

All of this is more or less the brainchild of brothers Ron and Russell Mael, known professionally as the music group Sparks, which is credited with providing the movie's original story and music, while the Maels and Carax receive credit for the lyrics. To call the music of this musical piece uninspired is an understatement. Flat and unmemorable tunes try to carry lyrics that are only less repetitive than the melodies beneath them. Nothing about the songs stands out, except, perhaps, how unenthused everyone on screen and, almost certainly, behind the camera is about them.

The story excusing the multiple musical numbers isn't worth too much, either. It follows stand-up comedian—and wait for it—Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) and his whirlwind/star-crossed romance with opera singer Ann (Marion Cotillard). We know they're in love because, during a montage of motorcycle-riding and some rather lazy sex, the two repeatedly, dully keep singing, "We love each other so much." When he's not given some stylistic oddity or an intriguing backdrop to interpret, Carax's involvement here is clearly just to have something happening on screen that keeps the thin story moving, without us succumbing to the sleepy tunes and rhythms of the music.

Things go south with the birth of the couple's daughter Annette, played by a subtly emotive puppet on which we can see all of the wooden joints. Henry's career stalls, as audiences find his humor increasingly distasteful (He does a not-too-tight five about killing his wife by way of tickling), but Ann's continues—constantly dying on stage and, afterwards, bowing, which Henry finds odd or ironic or funny or enraging for some unknowable reason. Meanwhile, Ann's accompanist (Simon Helberg, who provides the movie its one clear moment of emotional honesty, during a one-take that swirls around his character conducting an orchestra) is in love with the singer and, after a fairly predictable tragedy, helps Annette become a famous singer in her own right.

The rest involves some high-stakes melodrama—ghostly revenge, child exploitation, the revelation of an affair, murder, a high-profile court case—but feels stifled, underwhelming, and at a distance, both on account of the music and how little any of this has to say about fame in general or these characters specifically. Annette, perhaps, wants to examine how the world of celebrity is and, from the inside, makes everything seem fake, but that simplistic idea can't contend with the movie's own, all-encompassing phoniness.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Soundtrack