Annette
— I’m out of practice thanks to 17+ months without going to a movie theater and a pandemic that rages on and I was reminded of it when I watched “Annette” which is the strangest film I’ve been drawn to in a long time. It’s the musical story of Henry and Ann (Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard), a comedian and a soprano, both near the height of their careers, who meet, fall in love, marry, and have a child. There’s a lot going on and, I’m sure, a lot more that I missed. The two are an improbable pair—”counterintuitive” as they refer to their love. He shocks his audience throughout his comedy routine; she embraces her audience. At one point he mentions his evening on the stage was successful because he “killed” the audience; hers was successful because she “saved” her audience. Early in their romance, they sing that “true love always finds a way” and “true love always goes astray”. (Who hadn't thought that was the direction in which we were headed?) Midway into their story, their (puppet) baby arrives. Baby Annette is a little creepy—more like Chuckie than Ally McBeal's dancing hallucination—but very interesting in that she forces you to suspend your disbelief even more so you can accept her, and by so doing you’ve embraced the edge of the story farthest from the safety of reality. At one point Henry says he must never cast his eyes toward the abyss and, in a way, the film is about his descent into that abyss. Along the way we get to consider the tug and pull between audience and performer, between love and revenge, between authentic and fabricated, between altruism and exploitation—the list goes on. There’s something surreal about the film and it feels more like eavesdropping on someone’s dreams than on reality. It’s not a perfect film and there were times when I wanted the tempo to pick up but almost immediately, I’d realize I been pulled not just into the story, but into the emotions swirling around the story. I think this is the kind of thing you’ll love or hate, and I loved it.
[Amazon Prime streaming.]
