Annette
Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard star in the oddest of musicals from Leos Carax, whose work often divides opinion.
The fact that this film by Leos Carax, his sixth feature, is his first in English is of no great significance. Very often when a French filmmaker turns to the English language it means that the film can be expected to have mainstream potential, but Carax is so individual in his work that Annette is in line with what has gone before and that makes it a work of specialist appeal. So much so, in fact, that critics themselves seem to be deeply divided about how successful it is or isn’t.
I should, perhaps, put my cards on the table here. When Carax’s debut feature, 1984’s Boy Meets Girl, appeared I was ready to defend it against the extreme hostility to it expressed by certain British critics and in 2012 I found the weirdness of his fifth feature, Holy Motors, more often stimulating then boring. But the three films in between left me cold and Annette, lasting all of 140 minutes, again failed to draw me in. The three leading players here - Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard and Simon Helberg (best remembered as Howard Wolowitz on CBS's The Big Bang Theory, as well as for his supporting turn in 2016’s Florence Foster Jenkins) - all do well with what they are given and seeing Carax work on such a grand scale without ever compromising his off-beat vision does make one credit his chutzpah. Nevertheless, for me Annette never begins to work properly, save perhaps for what is more or less its closing scene.
Whereas earlier films have revealed Carax’s interest in music, Annette is the first of his movies to be a musical. Ron and Russell Mael, the brothers known as Sparks, provided the music for the film in addition to creating the story and working on the screenplay with Carax. Their plot can be described in terms that make it sound much more conventional than Annette proves to be. It tells of a couple from contrasted backgrounds, Henry McHenry and Ann Defrasnoux, who marry and become the parents of the titular character. He (Driver) is a successful comic famed for stage shows in which his stand-up routine frequently challenges the comfort zone of his audiences. She (Cotillard) is an established opera singer acclaimed for tragic roles. In an echo of A Star is Born, Henry starts to drink and goes off the rails as he loses his popularity while his wife’s acclaim increases and for all his faults she continues to love him. Later, after their daughter is found to have miraculously inherited her mother’s voice while still a baby, Henry in a further echo - this time of Gypsy - pushes the youngster into going on tour.
Some critics who have not taken to the film have stressed unlikely plot details instancing such aspects as the media frenzy over this celebrity match which they regard as absurdly exaggerated. But that is small beer when the whole film is concerned with artificiality and pushes that to a high degree. You notice early on when Ann is seen on stage singing and then during her aria wanders into a wood which looks far too realistic to ever be convincing as part of a stage set. However, that’s the kind of inconsistency that has sometimes been seen in standard film musicals in the past and what is striking here is just how much further Carax will take things.
Before seeing Annette, I had gained the impression that it would follow Jacques Demy’s masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in having no spoken dialogue. In point of fact it doesn’t go quite that far, but it does opt for singing most of the time, thus making it akin to the way in which operas contain recitative as well as arias. But, where Demy found a consistent approach both in the way that everything was sung and in the use of stylised colour designs, Carax is ready to try anything - or so it seems. Relatively early on singing features both during a sex scene and in the birth of Annette, but the boldest artificial touch comes with the decision to use a puppet to represent baby Annette. In some respects, the figure is more persuasive than you might expect, but even so it is clearly a puppet and there is no attempt to conceal the fact.
Put all these elements together and you have a very odd concept indeed. For those who admire the music of Sparks that aspect may make the film attractive, but for my taste their songs, varied in style though they are, are mainly notable for the persistence with which the lyrics are repeated. Occasionally a song of theirs carries an echo of Sondheim’s style but without ever matching him. Apart from Catherine Trottman being used to help out Marion Cotillard when it comes to operatic moments, the actors do their own singing and do it adroitly enough, but the music side of the film did not really impress me although in many scenes a chorus is used to make a strong contribution.
Ultimately, though, what makes or breaks the film is the story and in particular the lack of either concern or belief communicated. Henry informs us in an early scene that he doesn’t understand what Ann sees in him and neither do we. Henry is a remarkably unappealing character and it is impossible to understand why Ann would be drawn to him (there’s no chance for this to be explained since they are already together when the film opens). Nothing that happens later alters our lack of sympathy for Henry so this is a love story that never touches us. The couple may assure us over and over again that they love each other so much but we never feel it and, while we may adjust to Carax’s stylisations, his inability to involve us in the story is the fatal weakness. There’s also the self-indulgence in terms of length and the failure to make anything much of subsidiary themes (there is a scene in which six women seem to accuse Henry of sexual abuse, but it could be a dream sequence and is not followed up; Helberg’s role is that of an orchestral maestro who had once been Ann’s lover but, aside from a neat episode in which he addresses us direct while conducting, he gets relatively little to do).
By pushing everything to extremes, Annette may appeal to some, but I found it significant that by far the best scene is virtually the last one. It involves Driver and a young child actress Devyn McDowell, who share a confrontation in the form of a duet. Here the stylisation is limited to the direct emotional power that can be found in the opera house and by replacing all the earlier elaboration with this kind of simplification, it actually hits home. But it also confirms how much is wrong with the film up to that point - or at least that’s my view which, if shared by some, will doubtless be disputed by others. That’s the nature of this piece.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard, Simon Helberg, Devyn McDowell, Angèle, Okon Ubanga-Jones, Gabriela Leguizamo Gomez, Rebecca Dyson-Smith, Nastya Golubeva Carax, Ron Mael, Russell Mael.
Dir Leos Carax, Pro Paul-Dominique Win Vacharasinthu, Screenplay Ron Mael, Russell Mael and Leos Carax, from a story by Ron Mael and Russell Mael, Ph Caroline Champetier, Art Dir Florian Sanson, Ed Nelly Quettier, Music Sparks, Costumes Pascaline Chavanne.
CG Cinema/Arte France Cinéma/Canal+/Piano/Proximus/Scope Pictures-Mubi.
140 mins. France/Germany/Japan/Belgium/Mexico/Switzerland/USA. 2020. Rel: 3 September 2021. Cert. 15.
