ANNETTE
EXCELLENT GOOD OKAY POOR AWFUL
Clockwise from left: An impassioned Henry (Adam Driver) and Ann (Marion Cotillard); Driver on electric form; Ann’s (opera) star is rising; Simon Helberg as Ann’s accompanist.
★★★★★
OUT 3 SEPTEMBER CERT TBC / 139 MINS
DIRECTOR Leos Carax
CAST Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard, Simon Helberg
PLOT Incendiary stand-up comedian Henry McHenry (Driver) and opera star Ann Defrasnoux (Cotillard) are in love, but their bond is tested when his career starts to dip and hers starts to rise. Perhaps their new-born baby girl, Annette, can rekindle their passion. Except she’s made of wood.
IF YOU KNOW one thing about Annette, it’s probably that Adam Driver sings a tender, gorgeous love song (‘We Love Each Other So Much’) to Marion Cotillard’s foo-foo. It happens twice, but still doesn’t break the top five moments of weird shit that happen in Leos Carax’s wildat-heart, batshit-on-top phantasmagoric opera. Annette is unlike any other film in 2021 or any other year. Driven by Ron and Russell Mael’s, aka Sparks’, demented rhythms and lit up by Driver’s unhinged energy, it sails on the melding of its idiosyncratic talents to blow up an oft-told tale of showbiz people undone by professional jealousy, spun with wit, oversized emotions and lashings of cinematic brio.