Movie Review: Annette Is CRAZY GOOD!
Watching Director Leos Carax deranged, cinematic ride into the pitfalls of fame was a strange reminder of why I love movies: they are truly weird, 2-hour experiences. Coming August 20 to Prime and August 6 to theaters, Annette is a strange, yet fully enthralling experience that will certainly leave you piecing together what the hell you just watched.
Firstly, this musical (Yes, Musical!) has no qualms with its insanity or the fact that, similarly to The Green Knight, they don’t really feel like films. In the latter film, I felt more like I was reading a book, and, in Annette, I felt like I was watching a play. In Act One, the unlikely lovers of Henry (Adam Driver) and Anne (Marion Cotillard) fall for each other, and in Act Two, you see how well that goes. After all. she is one of the most illustrious opera singers, while he is a crass comedian; two people that not only differ in careers but trajectories.
Musically, the film feels like a peculiar Les Mis. More sentences are sung than spoken, but it oddly works thanks to the seriousness of its leads. While we could laugh at the “puppet-baby,” Annette, or giggle at the highly photo-shopped, yet incredibly accurate tabloid fodder, the film uses its lunacy to shed light on how ridiculous fame can be. For all that we all want it and even need it to thrive our business, its toll on our lives, or rather our souls, does not feel worth it.
Driver is exceptional as Henry. A comic who falls for the ethereal Anne at the the mutual height of their careers, but as she becomes a living legend, and he a laughing stock, tensions arise. Like many stars, he goes through scandals and accusations in front of the public while the world seemingly protects Anne: constantly begging her to never be with this “schlep” of a man. Frankly, we cannot say, in real life, we do not do the same: morally scoping and sculpting celebrities to decide who deserves our unadulterated protection versus our absolute cancellation. It is that latter, “controversial” word that throws Henry into psychotic behavior.
Carax had mentioned how impressed and impacted he was by Driver’s performance, and you can see why. Driver anchors the film’s madness to bring out its moral richness and relevancy: fame, in the wrong hands, can drive a man mad…. and even murderous. Meanwhile, Cotillard graces the screen, in voice and appearance, like an angelic haunting. She is the queen that fell for the court jester, and she uses her elegance the stamp a performance that lasts even when she is not on screen. She becomes, in essence, a ghost and an inadvertent catalyst for Annette’s own troubled upbringing: her daughter whom is also blessed with her beautiful voice and happens to be a puppet.
Watching Annette, I kept on thinking of all the experimental, Brechtian theater classes I took in college. You know the ones that say, “It doesn’t matter if the audience gets it…. What matters is if they feel it!” Annette lives in that distinct space; not caring what you think as much as what you feel while watching it.
