Annette

The art pop band Sparks (Ron and Russel Mael), recently featured in Edgar Wright's documentary, The Sparks Brothers, has crafted a bizarre, surreal, and all-too-real film that explores the consequences of fame, child exploitation, male stupidity, and marriage. It's a smart rarity, where the characters mostly communicate in song and nothing is safe, not even love.

Henry (Adam Driver), a successful comedian, loves opera singer, Ann (Marion Cotillard, but fame for both is a deal breaker. You've heard it all before (A Star is Born anyone?), and to some extent the disintegration of their marriage is close to a cliché, but their singing and the lack of haranguing or bitter tirades almost has you thinking they can make it. To those adoring fans on the outside, their union is perfect.

With the entrance of their baby girl, Annette, and Ann's exit, Henry is left to his own devices relying on others to care for her but becoming obsessive about Annette's gifted voice. It doesn't take him long to exploit her talent around the world and for the fates to catch up with him.

Driver is particularly effective as a towering talent (his comedy act is unusually odd and bright), brooding and elusive. Although Cotillard could always carry a picture (La Vie En Rose), this one belongs to Driver, whose character is as charged as his performance.

Special credit must be given to the Sparks bros, who wrote the story and the music, evocative of Brian De Palma's Phantom of Paradise and any Sondheim, and to French director Leos Carax, whose off-center vision helps Annette be a wildly different take on the ravages of fame and the hubris of men.

Slow and eccentric for some, just quirky and insightful for others, this romance is artistically enough for anyone wanting a worthy drama that happens to be a musical.

I like the main actors here, when I saw the initial trailer some time back I wrote it on my calendar, I was anxious to see it.

It is a very peculiar movie, mostly using the form of singing dialog. A recurring one is the melody "We love each other so much." However as the story moves along we wonder if Driver's stand up comic character really can love anyone.

It is long, I watched it in probably four different sittings, roughly a half-hour each time. I really was entertained by the experimental approach and its emotional extremes. However if you strip it all down it is a plain story. For me the most interesting scene is about 10 minutes from the end, when dad and Annette, now a young girl, do a face-to-face singing number, I was taken aback by how good and with proper emotion the young girl's singing and acting was.

I am glad I watched it, I like to experience all kinds of approaches in movie-making, but I didn't even invite my wife to join me, I know she would not have lasted 15 minutes. I would think most mainstream movie fans would NOT enjoy this one and watch it to its conclusion.

At home, on Amazon streaming.

"Annette" is not a conventional film musical, instead seeming like something you'd see in a black box theater with a small cast playing multiple roles and some not-quite-avant-garde staging.

The visual style crossfades between mundane, (nighttime motorcycle rides, the same winking lights of Los Angeles seen from the foothills of so many films), magical realism (opera stages that become moonlit glades), and abstract. Intentionally absurdist TMZ-style segments introduce new phases of the story.

The music is repetitive and wan, with Adam Driver producing many of the same thin, scratchy falsetto sounds as Hugh Jackman in "Les Mis" Marion Cotillard alternately signing for herself and obviously dubbed.

The vocal lines often remind me of sections of Sondheim, when he uses quasi-tonal, wan phrasing such as in the song "Barcelona." He uses it much more sparingly than this score, which seldom builds into much melody. This, of course, could be intentional. The important repeated bit of song "we love each other so much" might actually be intended to ironically suggest desperation and insufficiency in the emotion.

The story is simple and deals with cardboard cutouts of characters, by design-- which is why Annette herself is so strangely effective.

This is her film, after all, though Driver's Henry McHenry-- an edgy, self-loathing standup comedian-- is the central focus, really.

Simon Helberg-- somewhat reprising his accompanist role from "Florence Foster Jenkins" has some of the more interesting moments of acting, and is the subject of a particularly bravura circular tracking shot that's the real filmmaking highlight of the latter part of the film.

All in all, an impressive, if bewildering, fever dream of film that is not the sum of its parts, and doesn't add up to much, but will enchant you with its visuals and haunt you with its oversimplified plainsong.

Greetings again from the darkness. The anticipation of seeing a film directed by Leos Carax (HOLY MOTORS, 2012), and written and scored by Ron Mael and Russell Mael of Sparks fame, is derived from expecting the unexpected ... experiencing something we've never before experienced cinematically. And although the film is likely to be quite divisive - beloved by some, dismissed by others, confusing for all - the ingenuity, creativity, and risk-taking are quite something to behold. As for the narrative coherence? Well that's quite a different topic.

A mere six weeks ago I watched and reviewed Edgar Wright's excellent documentary THE SPARKS BROTHERS, where Ron and Russell discussed their affinity and vision for movies, despite a few near misses over the years. This particular material was originally conceived as a rock opera album, and it's probable that very few directors would even attempt the transition to the big screen. It would be equally challenging as an opera, a play, or a stage musical. In simple terms, this is a musical-drama-romance; however in reality, it's confoundingly difficult to define or describe.

The opening sequence begins in a recording studio with director Carax at the sound board as the Sparks band performs "So May We Start?" Soon they are marching the streets of Santa Monica, joined in singing the song by the lead actors of the movie we are about to watch. The narrator tells us, "Breathing will not be tolerated", which takes on a touch of irony during a pandemic.

Adam Driver stars as Henry, an offbeat stand-up comedian, and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard stars as Ann, a popular opera singer. Henry bills himself as 'The Ape of God' and performs an abrasive comedy act that is interactive with his audience. He psyches up for each performance by shadow-boxing in a robe while puffing on a cigarette. Ann is often shown alone on stage (Catherine Trottman sings the opera parts, while Ms. Cotillard sings the rest). The couple is engaged when we open, and they later marry, have a child (the titular Annette), and take different approaches to their career. Henry and Ann are polar opposites and that's best exemplified by how they end their respective shows: he 'moons' his audience, while she gracefully bows in appreciation.

Henry is a man filled with love, yet clueless on how to love. He's a tortured soul - the kind that doesn't believe he deserves the life he has and finds a way to self-destruct. Henry and Ann are passionate lovers and their duet "We Love Each Other So Much" has the most unusual timing that you'll see in a musical; in fact, the musical interludes (with repeating lyrics) often arise at the most inopportune (or at least unexpected) moments. Ms. Cotillard's talents are never fully utilized, while much of the film's weight is carried by Mr. Driver.

After tragedy strikes, the story becomes quite bizarre with Henry and "Baby Annette". To say more would spoil that which should remain surprising. Simon Helberg's role as conductor increases in the second half, and his character's past with Ann lends itself to the complexity of relationships. This is a dark love story, and one that befuddles right up to the end. Director Carax and the Mael brothers could slide into the Avant-garde corner, but that might scare off even more potential viewers, so let's use 'fantastical' instead. Sometimes it tries a bit too hard to shock or agitate, and the stories are a bit discordant, but it's all for a good cause: provocation. The film, dedicated to Carax's daughter Nastya (who appears in the opening sequence), sometimes feels like the wild nightmares that you (mostly) don't want to end. And that's about all that should be said to preserve the experience.

This Musical opens in theaters on August 6, 2021 and on Amazon Prime Video on August 20, 2021.

As "Annette" (2021 release; 140 min.) opens, the brothers Ron and Russell Mael and the rest of their band Sparks are in the studio, bursting into "So May We Start". Ron and Russell soon leave the studio, and walk outside onto the street, soon joined by Adam Drive, Marion Cotillard, and others from the cast. Adam and Marion soon change into their characters, resp. Henry, a stand-up comedian, and Ann, an opera soprano. Henry and Ann are in the middle of a whirlwind romance... At this point we are 10 min. Into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest film from French director Leos Carax ("Les Amants du Pont-Neuf"). Here he takes and builds on an original story from Ron and Russell Mael, who also wrote all of the music and lyrics. The Mael brothers are of course the brains behind the long-running L. A. rock band Sparks, whose commercial heydays were in the 1970s with albums like Kimono My House, and Propaganda. They thought up this by today's standards highly unusual film, which brings an opera/musical drama to life. As in a real opera, the plot advances slowly but steadily, and runs quite long. In that sense, this is a very traditional opera/musical drama. The title character Annette refers to the daughter born to Henry and Ann, and all I will say is that it isn't your usual baby... Just watch! Let me address the many outright negative reviews on here: what in the world were you expecting? This isn't your run-of-the-mill superheroes movie (the many, many, many Marvel films come to mind) or popcorn action movie (the Fast & Furious franchise comes to mind). "Annette" is a one-of-a-kind, completely original film, the likes of which are frankly rarely made anymore these days, and for that we should be very, very thankful. Is the film without flaws? Of course not (for example, Henry's second standup-up segment, set in Vegas, runs far too long and doesn't advance the plot). If you saw the excellent "Sparks Brothers" documentary earlier this year, you already knew that a sizeable part of "Annette" was shot in Belgium (Brussels and Bruges, in particular). Being originally from Belgium myself, I had a fun time trying to match up which scenes had been filmed there. Last but not least, the production budget for this film was an incredible $15 million, a mere pittance by Hollywood standards.

"Annette" premiered at this year's Cannes film festival to positive buzz. It opened in select theaters for a 2 week theater run, and this weekend it premiered on Amazon Prime, where I caught it. Frankly, I felt that the movie got better as it went along and the drama unfolds before our very eyes. If you are in the mood for an opera/musical drama or simply are a fan of Sparks, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it on Amazon Prime, Amazon Instant Video or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.