Review: Annette

Image courtesy of Amazon.

Leos Carax's "Annette" — which combined with Julia Ducournau's "Titane" and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Memoria" by all accounts must have made for a mind-bending Cannes Film Festival last month — is likely to be the strangest movie you'll see all year. For those familiar with the work of the French director — who has made six features in some 37 years — this will come as no surprise.

In some ways, "Annette" feels like Carax's biggest film. This is the closest we might get to a seemingly big-budget Leos Carax movie. The one thing the film doesn't lack is cajones, although the thing it seems to lack is an editor (at nearly 140 minutes, it feels a little stretched to the max).

In terms of quality, "Annette" falls somewhere in the middle of the reclusive director's work. "Holy Motors" remains his best — and most career-defining work — while "Lovers on the Bridge" and "Mauvais Sang" are the runners up. "Annette" isn't on the level of those films, but it's better than his decent, but not great, "Boy Meets Girl" and his (in my opinion) slightly overrated "Pola X."

The film is, in some ways, the most Carax-ian of them all. "Annette" is a musical — although a dark and, occasionally, depressing one — in the style of "A Star is Born," only with a foul mouthed, controversy-seeking comedian (a very committed Adam Driver) and a soprano opera singer (Marion Cotillard) as its central figures. Oh yeah, and I should mention they have a young daughter — the titular character — who is portrayed by an, um, animatronic puppet.

The film's opening sequence is its greatest display of bravura. Beginning in a recording studio, Carax himself sits in a chair and asks, "May we begin?" to various people seated in a recording studio. Members of the band Sparks — who provide the film's music — begin to play and sing. Then, they get up out of their chairs and begin walking out of the studio, and the film transitions into a musical as they make their way down the street. They are joined by Driver's Henry McHenry and Cotillard's Ann, who eventually branch off, with McHenry heading off on his motorcycle and Ann driving away in a limousine.

Their romance is briefly introduced, and we find ourselves already in the midst of their relationship — one of the film's less-intriguing conceits involves clips from an E!-like TV station that keeps us up to date on the latest gossip involving the couple. 

Ann is renowned for her onstage deaths during her performances, while Henry's comedy act is less stand-up and more performance art piece. His crowd chants along in unison when called upon to do so, and his situational brand of aggressive comedy hints at anger and violence lurking beneath — there's also a dream sequence in which Ann imagines a bunch of women coming forward to denounce Henry in a #MeToo style — as well as a confessional aspect. He admits that he became a comedian to disarm people.

But like "A Star is Born," one character's star is on the rise (Ann), while Henry flames out during a performance in which he claims, much to the audience's dismay, that he has murdered his wife. The two of them have a baby daughter — the creepily animatronic Annette — but that doesn't save their marriage. Then, a tragedy occurs and the film takes on an even more surreal storyline involving Henry taking Annette on the road to display her surprising singing talents, although this "singing" mostly amounts to her going "ah-ah-ah-ah" and flying through the air (don't ask).

"Annette" is a film that features, well, a whole lot. It's long, strange, often impressive in its execution, occasionally exhausting and somewhat muddled in the themes it's trying to convey. As a director, Carax has long lingered on artifice: His brilliant "Holy Motors" was all about the act of acting and creating a persona out of thin air, while in other films, characters would burst into exuberant running or dancing at random moments (think of the jog down the street to David Bowie's "Modern Love" in "Mauvais Sang" or the insane dancing sequence on the bridge in "Lovers on the Bridge").

Carax is certainly among modern moviedom's unique originals. There's nothing quite like his films, including "Annette," other than other Carax films. "Annette" can be invigorating, truly bizarre, unsettling, funny, a little tedious and inventive all within the course of a single scene. It's a case of a movie being a little "too much," one might say. It's not my favorite Carax movie, but I'm glad it exists. It will likely please or alienate viewers in equal measure.