Direction: Leos Carax
Country: France / Belgium / Germany
Provocative French filmmaker Leos Carax (Holy Motors, 2012) teams up with brothers Russell and Ron Mael (the duo Sparks), who wrote the original story and the music, in Annette, his first English-language film. The result was disappointingly mediocre, and what was eagerly expected as a grandiose musical hit, became mostly an insipid spectacle that feels too literal and pedestrian to fly higher. What happened to that delightful ambiguity and abandon that Carax so stylishly exerted in other works?
Despite its efforts of production, the film is thwarted by a deficient development, a blatant lack of surprise and the dragging singing scenes that go with the extremely artificial staging. Adam Driver (Paterson, 2016; Marriage Story, 2019) - who sings with a Nick Cave vibe when not mumbling - doesn’t excel in playing a stand-up comedian in decline, while Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose, 2007; Two Days One Night, 2014) is modest in the role of an acclaimed opera singer. Their child, Annette, is a miracle that the world needs to see, and in fact she saves the film from total oblivion with that last touching scene, where she appears in a pure human form (young newcomer Devyn McDowell is brilliant).
Apart from that, what we have here is some first-rate imagery in a second-rate movie filled with third-rate dialogues. The music and chants didn’t please me either, contributing to a pretentious, kitsch expression that is more irritating than emotional.
Carax’s Annette is blatantly uninspired and I was simply left in the cold of its contrived machination.
