Review: Sparks have Earned their Cinematic Debut ‘Annette’
“You've read about her, you've heard about her, but nothing will prepare you for what you're about to see. Nothing will have prepared you for what you're about to see and hear.”
Nine years after Leos Carax’s Cannes smash hit Holy Motors comes Annette, a melodramatic operetta crafted with Ron and Russell Mael of avant-garde pop duo Sparks. Beginning with a leap into the narrative world from the recording booth, the film’s winking style of comedy adds meta layers to the musical.
Annette opens the curtain on Henry McHenry (Adam Driver), a comedian whose Netflix special would be recommended to us all for months. With his brand of offensive, pathetic masculine humor, he attempts to disarm his crowd and “kill” them with laughter. He is wildly, passionately in love with opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard), an angelic figure whose onstage deaths “save” her audience night after night. Throughout the film, their mismatched romance is the center of goofy E! News- style segments that recap the couple’s developments for the audience. Henry’s ego, vices, and penchant for violent fantasy begin to sink his stardom as Ann’s soars. Of course the two think reproducing will solve these problems, which are instead accelerated by the arrival of Annette, a marionette infant.
The film doesn’t reach its full momentum until more than an hour in, when the music also becomes more consistent as it’s discovered Annette has inherited her mother’s soprano talent. In line with operatic tradition, Ann becomes a tragic lost maternal figure who continues to haunt her husband for his selfish actions and her death. Henry’s desperation pushes him to capitalize off of the circumstances, turning his daughter into a star even brighter and more beloved than both parents combined. Ann’s previous lover and musical accompanist (Simon Helberg) joins as accomplice in seeking some of the spotlight, entangling himself in the puppet strings as well. Annette’s design is genius, slightly uncanny and wonderfully expressive while also serving as the ideal manipulable object. Henry sees her as a posable plaything, a vessel for stardom that he can manage and feel loved through vicariously.
Adam Driver flings himself at the leading role to great effect as a man provoking his own victimhood, digging his hole deeper at each turn. His standup performances are physically and emotionally explosive, and he lambasts his own audiences for their taste in comedy. With his inferiority complex he also doubts someone as pure of heart as Ann could ever care for him, as she fears his name will emerge amidst the #MeToo movement almost inevitably. His self-destructive tendencies and ill-preparedness for fatherhood are the perfect intersection at which his life begins to fall apart. Ultimately his own decisions are his tragic downfall, another mainstay of the operatic tradition.
Sparks has always liked making jokes about traditional masculinity and ideas of fame, and Henry McHenry is probably the most explicit version of these themes blown beyond proportion. Annette implements many of their most recognizable songwriting conventions, at the forefront being Ron Mael’s witty, symbolically layered lyrics. The music references multiple sounds from their career, employing synths from No. 1 in Heaven, classical flourishes and call and response from Little Beethoven, and even two direct pulls from the Propaganda album. Annette’s music only scrapes the surface of the band’s decades-spanning, genre-smashing legacy, which was detailed earlier in the year in Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers documentary. With such artistic panache it's very easy to discern their contributions from Carax’s.
Despite combining so many smart and original pieces, what the film ultimately lacks is a solid directorial vision. Carax is clearly willing to take cinematic risks, but the thought arises that perhaps Carax wasn’t necessarily always in on all of the jokes in Annette. The best moments are those poking fun and emphasizing the artifice of the story, when the camera feels like it’s moving with purpose and the mise-en-scène is actively building up the drama. Some of the visible stylization does enhance the impact, as with Ann’s death scene and Annette’s farewell tour performance, but Carax’s French haphazard methods of shooting disagree with the staged musical most of the time. These noticeably divided intentions are a distraction from the work overall. Perhaps under the steady hand of another, it would feel more polished in its messaging. For those willing to tune out these flat notes, there’s still plenty to appreciate thanks to Driver and Sparks. By the time Annette reaches its curtain call, one can say they’ve witnessed something completely one of a kind.
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