Annette, a musical romantic drama, is Leos Carax’s first feature since 2012’s indescribable Holy Motors. Annette pairs him up with Ron and Russell Mael, the brothers better known as Sparks. It is the perfect creative marriage, the music & script provided by the brothers perfectly meshing with Carax’s visual and narrative sensibilities. This marks the first feature Carax has directed that he’s not also written. For those unfamiliar with Sparks, or their work, there was a delightful documentary from filmmaker Edgar Wright, The Sparks Brothers, recently released.
The film opens with a 4th-wall-breaking musical number (“So May We Start”) that introduces you to most of the key players in the film, included Leos Carax and Sparks. The film is set in Los Angeles, and Angelenos will appreciate that this musical opening did not shut down a freeway.
After the opening number, the narrative starts by paralleling Ann (played by Marion Cotillard) and Henry (played by Adam Driver) by showing them preparing for their shows in different but similar ways. This quickly establishes both their similarities and their differences. We stay with Henry for his comedy routine, but we cut to Ann every so often, so you know they are connected even before Henry launches into a story about their love.
The music of Sparks is used very effectively in the scene to sell the comedy and heightened reality aspect of the film. There’s also a great understanding of audience expectations in this scene and that’s used effectively by building tensions towards a certain action, having it happen, and then having it be a joke (one that belies darkness that will play out later). It also sets up a great callback line while tightening Henry’s connection to Ann.
Leos Carax is a master of perspective, and he shows this early on with a POV shot of Henry reaching for Anne’s shoulder. The angle makes Henry’s hands appear overly large and threatening until they land on Ann’s shoulders, where they only seem affectionate. However, with later hindsight, you can wonder if this was his darker demons already at work.
The song “We Love Each Other So Much,” is the film’s love theme, which for much of the song repeats just those words. This song would not work in a musical that took itself too seriously, but it works perfectly in this movie. This is the song that has the much talked about mid-song oral-sex sequence. However, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, that’s not the most shocking thing about the song. The most surprising thing is that you discover later in the film that it’s not a musical song in the classic sense (aka a heart song, or a song a character “makes up on the spot that expresses their inner feelings”) despite appearing as such. It was actually a song written for Ann by The Accompanist (played by Simon Helberg), which once again changes the perspective of the previously viewed musical scene. It’s all very clever.
After the love song, we have Ann’s turn to perform while only seeing Henry prepare for his show. Because of the previously established link, we know their performances are tied which means you have to pay attention to her opera song lyrics and what they mean for her relationship with Henry. And what they express is… FEAR.
Light and smoke, along with big backdrops, help to early establish the heightened reality of the film, but it is fully established with the birth of the pair’s child, the titular Annette. Annette is a puppet, first presented at her birth with a glowing heart.
Why a puppet? The film was made pre-Covid if you were wondering about Covid-restrictions (I certainly asked myself). Visually it certainly fits with both Carax’s and Sparks, who push the absurd in their works. However, the longer the film went on, the more apparent it became it was the only choice for the narrative of a girl who was to be made a puppet by her mother’s desire for revenge against her father and by her father’s desire for fame at any cost.
Available on Amazon Prime.