Annette is not everyone’s cup of tea, but the problem lies with it on many other levels. Adam Driver stars as a controversial stand-up comic Henry and he is in full command throughout. Except, he’s not the most endearing character in the slightest. He’s together and eventually marries opera soprano star Ann (Marion Cotillard).
Director Leos Carax has the best of intentions with his musical. There are stellar turns from all of its stars, including Big Bang Theory’s Simon Helberg, who portrays Ann’s accompanist with dreams of serving as an orchestra’s conductor. The songs by The Sparks are mostly catchy, particularly the film’s opening number. So May We Start features the cast in Los Angles in a recording studio and then out in the streets of the City of Angels. In fact, a La La Land vibe immediately emits, but with a Sparks touch that is never on the straight and narrow—nor should it be with these two creative geniuses who are having a moment with The Sparks Brothers documentary that was recently released.
As the film progresses, the issue is that it gets odder and odder and not in a cinema verité way. Heck, I love avant-garde movies as much as the next writer, but there is something about that bothered me from the moment after its entire cast rip-roaring opening number.
Driver is a Louis CK “shock” comedian whose shows are unpredictable and his sometimes resentment for his audience is right on the surface—but that is part of his act. So is pushing the envelope of what makes people comfortable hearing from their satirists. The audience loves him for it. The scene is intercut with Cotillard’s operatic triumphant concert. Yet, where the opera singer’s performance is the embodying of beauty, within the first five minutes of his boxer-like entrance to his show, he makes a joke about how everyone hates the Jews and how that joke went over about as well as a sexual act in a gas chamber.
Immediately, commiseration with such a character has become impossible. Yes, there can be something redeemable about even a villain like The Joker to the point where two actors have won Academy Awards within the same decade for portraying the same character.
Henry is jealous of his wife’s rising fame and his fading fire. They have the titular baby and that only seems to complicate matters. Carax made the decision to use a puppet for the baby that is an immediate distraction. In fact, it’s creepy. At one point, she starts to sing, and her gift is immediately exploited by her father with international tours. But the thing that cannot change is the demeanor and deep-seated insecurity of Henry.
Does he have the capability of violence? That question lies just below the surface of Annette and his drinking doesn’t help matters. Driver is one incredible actor, one of the best working of his generation. One day, he will win an Oscar. It is not a question of if, it is when. Even with an incredible performance, sadly, that golden trophy will not be his for Annette. His singing is solid, it is just that even though there is an evolution of a soul, it feels in hindsight like a foregone conclusion that was advertised with a neon sign early in the first act. Driver does what he can with it, which is quite a bit. After all, Kylo Ren was not the most fully fleshed-out character the actor has ever embodied, but believe you me, he struck fear in souls during that first Star Wars sequel.
Cotillard. What can be said about the Oscar-nominated French actress? In many ways, she is utterly wasted here as the subject of Henry’s ire. For a spat, there is a love there, but it devolves into something in a song that doesn’t seem in the least worth celebrating, much less worthy with a two-hour movie.
Carax has the craftwork of a motion picture that fails to even make a point. Surely, every cinematic experience has something to say. Even Halloween has its social and cultural relevance. Sadly, Annette is missing any of that. In fact, completing the picture was of the utmost difficultly and once it was thankfully over, things in the ole’noggin’ were not much better.
Grade: D-