Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) is a comedian known for his boundary pushing shock-comedy routine under the stage name “The Ape of God.”  He begins a relationship with a rising opera star, Ann (Marion Cotillard) under the ever-watching eye of the paparazzi.  Soon they welcome in their first child, the titular Annette, whose strange and miraculous talents begin to reveal themselves all while her parents’ marriage crumbles apart under the weight of fame and parenthood. 

Annette is a bold, highly stylized rock opera directed by Leos Carax with book and lyrics by Sparks released by Amazon Studios.  From the description alone, the film has a lot of preconceived notions it needs to overcome.  It is a musical for one, it has a lengthy 141-minnute runtime, and as previously mentioned it has a unique and strange style to it that can be off-putting at a first glance, especially outside of the context of the film.  All of that aside, Annette is a rather straightforward narrative and does a great job at onboarding the audience to its brand with the opening number.  

Musically, the film boasts some very catchy tunes and makes for an enjoyable watch.  The score is very intricate and expertly incorporates a lot of diegetic sounds which adds great texture and connectivity to the scenes, especially when the camera is intercutting between Henry and Ann.  Lyrically, however, it does fall into the inherent trap that musicals have in which they almost always tell more than they show.  It is easier to forgive this when viewing a musical on a live stage as that medium is much better at allowing for long soliloquies than the silver screen, but to the film’s credit it does give its actors a rich world to interact with and explore and it tries not to linger in any one location too long during these more mediative and pondering songs. 

The film even proves this point in an elegant aria which finds Ann in the forest alone at night and scared.  This extended scene, which is rife with foreshadowing of the emotional journey the actress is going to endure not just in the context of the opera but her life off-stage as well, is one of the most beautiful of the entire film.  Not only does this provide a great roadmap for Ann’s arc, but it also brings to light the question the film continually wrestles with: where is the line between what is real and what is performance?  The transition from the very abstractly staged forest into the hyper realistic set, all with the seamlessly composited signing of Cotillard and operatic singer, Catherine Trottmann, makes for one of the most memorable scenes in a film that continually overloads our senses. 

When compared to the filmmaking behind a song later performed by Ann at their house musing about her past and her relationship with Henry, it is hard to stay engaged despite the similar purpose to signal that there is something ominous just under the surface of it all.  The sets allow Ann to do a lot, but the action is all so meaningless that it does not connect to the lyrics in any authentic way and the songs become painfully awkward to watch as the verses continue.  This is not at all a knock on Cotillard’s performance, which is haunting and mysterious throughout, but just the inevitable challenge of bringing out an internal struggle into the light for the camera.  When you consider that it was Carax’s decision from the start to have all the signing done live, the commitment to bringing his vision to the screen from his actors is admirable.   

A few blocks away, at another LA venue, Henry performs his comic routine on a sparce stage.  Driver here gives an incredible physical and manic performance as the comedian jumps, flails, and even fakes his own death for the rapturous audience.  It is the latest entry into the well-rounded resume of one of the finest – and one of the busiest – actors working today.  Vocally, however, the actor does seem to strain a little bit more than his costars, especially on the more bombastic songs.  His overall performance, outside of the remarkable Ape of God comic sequences, is much better suited to the quieter scenes of the film as a clearly troubled man with countless demons on his shoulder, whispering great sins into his ear. 

As the film moves along and begins to narrow its focus on Henry, it really begins to lose steam.  Driver gives a great performance through and through, but overall, Henry is such an unredeemable character that it is a challenge to spend the latter half of the film with him at the center.  Add to this the lack of follow through and the underutilization of some plot devices the film went out of its way to setup – the chorus of accusers, The Accompanist (Simon Helberg) and his relationship to the celebrity couple – it all makes for an underwhelming third act. 

The other driving force behind the second half of the film is Annette herself.  The very deliberate decision was made to portray the child as a puppet, and while it may sound just a little too farfetched to read it here, the choice fits perfectly into the tone of the film.  While she is definitely used more as a vehicle for the ultimate theme of the film rather than an actual character, great care was made so that we actually sympathize with her.  Late in the film, you will notice a small cut on her head that babies so often get as the tip and topple into things, and it is this level of attention to detail that really helps to show us her humanity. 

Annette’s expanded role in the film does muddy the messaging.  It takes a lot of the spotlight off Henry and how he is reacting to both his own fame, and having to share Ann with the adoring public, especially as her stardom begins to eclipse his own.  Annette puts us in the uncomfortable position to evaluate our own ideas about celebrity and how we view the creators we love.  The script even goes so far as to call it and exploitative relationship, and while within the context of the film its certainly is exploitative, the pessimistic view the script takes on ignores the idea that creators can also be in love with their art.   

To a degree, we can see that Ann may love what she does, but it is incredibly draining on her both physically and mentally as she is required to “die” night after night on stage as the tragic heroine of the famous operas.  Henry, too, has a very complicated relationship with fame and it is clear that he has many barriers built to try and protect his privacy to various degrees of success.  He does not want the public to have any control or access to him as we can tell from the orchestrated comic act in the opening few sequences and later the way he refuses to remove his motorcycle helmet for the cameras after the show.   

That brings us to Annette who finds herself in an incredible rise to global fame, but she is totally powerless over it all as her father, Henry, is quite literally the puppet master behind her recognition.  The script is trying to hammer too broad a point and when it finally concludes with a confounding final shot – not counting the post credits sequence – the more personal and private conclusion does not jive given the wide-reaching style the film previously and continually displayed without faltering.  A little more clarity of intention would have made for a much more impactful ending in a film that had always been so sharply able to guide our way of thinking up until this final point. 

Annette is an experience.  The craft and deliberate framing of everything we see on screen is without a doubt the collective work of hundreds of people on the same page.  That it manages to be such a uniquely styled piece makes this control even more of a wonder to behold.  Bound to be a polarizing watch because while there is both something for everyone to latch on to there is also something for everyone to be turned off by.  The concept and prestige it picked up coming off of the festival circuit makes it sound intimidating, but Annette is a surprisingly accessible film and worth the time it takes to check it out.