BEFORE: Well, the hammer fell today - I interviewed for a new job a week ago, and before that, I spent two weeks worrying about and preparing for the interview. Today I got the e-mail that says they're moving forward with other candidates. Silly me, I aimed high and I dared to dream and I couldn't WAIT to quit my current job, tell the boss off and slam the door on the way out. Well, it's not going to happen that way, and now I have to deal with the fact that my life isn't going to change, not this time. Nothing seems to come easy for me when it comes to changing jobs, though I have changed jobs twice since the pandemic, it's never quite when or how I want it to be, like the whole process is out of my control somehow, and that makes me feel like I'm not in control of my own life, so I guess in the end I'm just not. Now I'm even more depressed because I have to keep on working the same job, and I'd gotten my hopes up that I wouldn't have to do it any more. And so it goes.
Adam Driver carries over from "White Noise".
THE PLOT: A stand-up comedian and his opera singer wife have a two-year-old daughter with a surprising gift.
AFTER: It's that time of year, the Cannes Festival is taking place (May 16-27) and things there are always a little bit weird - it's kind of like the Met Gala with movies, or so I've heard. I've never had the pleasure (?) of attending, though I've been to Sundance three times. Imagine Sundance meets the Met Gala, with a fair amount of San Diego Comic-Con thrown in, and maybe you're getting close to what Cannes is all about. Maybe.
"Annette" is a film that did well at Cannes two years ago - it was nominated for the Palme d'Or and won Best Director and Best Composer - and the composers were the Sparks Brothers, Ron and Russell Mael, and from what I saw in the documentary about them last year, they've always been the makers of weird songs and weird videos, so going in to this one, I really should have known that it would be weirdness on top of weirdness. Umm, don't say I didn't warn you, if weird isn't your thing, maybe stay away from this one.
But really, here we go again with another weird film, right? I don't want to generalize, but it feels like it's been a banner year for the really WEIRD films - like, I don't know, "Everything Everywhere All at Once"? That was a weird film. "The Death of Dick Long"? same. "Welcome to Collinwood"? Weird, but in a different way. "The Menu", "Glass Onion", "Person to Person", "Prelude to a Kiss", "Touched With Fire", "Villains", "The Bling Ring", "Mr. Nobody", "The Weight of Water", "Space Jam: A New Legacy", "No Sudden Move", "Nightmare Alley", "The Card Counter", "Amsterdam", "Equilibrium", "Final Portrait", "A Shock to the System", they're all just WEIRD, some good-weird, some bad-weird. What is up with this year? Or did I watch all the "normal, non-weird" movies already, and I'm left with all the strange ones now?
The weirdest movie I watched last year was probably "Cryptozoo", I think that one was probably weirder, overall, than "Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" - but then when a movie gets TOO weird, it becomes something close to incomprehensible, and I think "Cryptozoo" proves my point. I'd say that "Annette" is probably getting close to "Cryptozoo" in that regard. So we've got another contender today for "Weirdest Movie of the Year".
Here's WHY "Annette" is so weird, I think:
1) Everybody sings. Like, all the time. Sure, it's a musical, but even in most musical movies, people talk normally to each other, then break into song. Umm, not here, this is all singing, all the time, and even though this goes on for more than 2 hours, I did NOT get used to it. The only other movie I can think of where it was all-singing, all the time, was "Jesus Christ Superstar", and that's another really weird movie, when you get right down to it. (Somebody looked at the BIBLE, of all things, and said, "Yep, needs more songs..."). A little googling tells me that the technical term for this is "sung-through", and other examples of this technique can be found in "Cats", "Evita", "Miss Saigon" and "Les Miserables" (2012). That's some, uh, notable competition there. Sure, it's great to evoke "Les Miz" but be careful your sung-through film doesn't end up more like "Cats".
2) Adam Driver SINGS and also plays a stand-up comic. I know, it seems like maybe Adam Driver can do it all - drama, comedy, sci-fi and whatever "White Noise" was. But can he sing? Umm, sure. Can he sing WELL? Umm, no. So this is an odd choice, to cast Driver in a part where every line is sung. I mean, I guess if you can get Adam Driver, you get Adam Driver, but are you SURE about this, REALLY SURE? Because I'm not. Also, his character is a stand-up comic, and although it appears some research went into this (Chris Rock and Bill Burr are thanked in the credits) there didn't seem to be much done to ensure that his character was, you know, FUNNY. Not at all. OK, so he's not the kind of stand-up comic that does jokes, but then, like what IS HE? Some kind of performance artist who just keeps going over (with a singing audience, no less) why he became a comedian. So umm, who forgot to write some jokes for him to tell? Why not make a movie about a painter with no artistic ability, or a race car driver who doesn't know how to drive, that would be about the equivalent.
3) The film knows that it's a movie, the writers and directors make cameo appearances, and that's all just a little too self aware, isn't it? The Sparks Brothers appear with the cast at the start, to umm, ask if they can all get started with the film. YES! By all means, start, nobody's stopping you except your apparent need to perform a song about starting. Go ahead! And then there are some sets in the film that are, well, obviously sets, like the yacht that's caught in the storm - I guess they didn't have the budget to film on a real boat on a real ocean, so instead they just decided to lean into it, and visually say, "Yes, this is a set, and we know that you know it's a set, so it's going to obviously LOOK like a set piece, and we've decided that's going to be OK." Yes, but it's one more thing that reminds me that I'm watching a movie, which has sets. Another film from earlier this year, "The Wonder", also did this at the start and end of it's film, and it's just a little too "Dogville" for me, one more meta thing, for a film to keep acknowledging that it's a film, because we all already KNOW this already, and we don't need to be constantly reminded. Or is this another acknowledgement that there's not much of a budget for location shooting?
4) Driver's character is named Henry McHenry - that should be a narrative no-no right there. But by now we've come to expect weird things, and I will allow a bit of Vonnegut-like naming, like "Kilgore Trout" or "Billy Pilgrim" - so I'm going to have let this one slide...
5) Well, we just have to talk about the PUPPET, don't we? This may be another consideration regarding how hard it is to make movies - sometimes you have to work with children or even babies, and they can be difficult. The character of Annette, Henry and Ann's daughter, is called upon to be expressive as a baby, and to DO things at the age of 2 - so how does one get a one-year-old or two-year-old to do exactly what is required, on film? Again, it looks like somebody here decided to lean into the problem, and so the part of Annette is played by a puppet, for about 90% of her screen-time. Debate can be had over whether this was a stylistic choice, or a desperate concession when they had trouble casting a real baby. It's not the choice I would have made, but really, it's an intriguing one. Maybe it's the fact that I watched Guillermo Del Toro's "Pinocchio" almost two months ago (53 films back) but this just seems like a BAD IDEA, on some level, that was somehow also the best choice, on another level. The puppet has no expressiveness, but then again, neither do some babies. The puppet can't walk or talk, but then again, neither do some babies. Maybe this is a genius idea? Or it's so bad and weird that it looped around past bad and weird and became a good, sensible idea? I have a hard time thinking this was a decision made just from an artistic POV because that's crazy, right? Very late in the film, the puppet Annette is replaced by an actor, and what does that say about somebody's opinions about children, that they're somehow "less real" before they can talk and think? That kids are basically useless until they can have thoughts of their own?
6) If this is what the film says about children, then what's the message we can draw from the other parts of the film? That love is fleeting, and all relationships naturally deteriorate to the point where the people involved can't stand each other and want to kill each other? That there's no such thing as true love, or if there is, it gets ruined by the presence of children? Or is the message that stand-up comedians and opera stars shouldn't marry each other? Or, more generally, that two famous people shouldn't marry each other, because it will only lead to jealousy and regret when one of their careers is in decline? Sure, I'm reading between the lines quite a bit here, but I kind of have to, it's THAT kind of film. There are shades of other films here, like "A Star Is Born", which kind of had a similar message - the odds of both people continuing to remain famous and popular indefinitely is a long-shot, so the relationship is therefore doomed. But is every relationship therefore similarly doomed, or just THIS one?
7) The film makes use of another technique, one that's been around as long as there has been acting - it's the "Greek chorus". Several times during the film, the singing is shared - by a group of nurses in the delivery room, by the paparazzi photographers, and also the six women who accuse Henry McHenry of sexual misconduct. Sure, it's weird by today's standards, but I'm going to have to let this one slide, too, because it's a time-honored technique that's been around for thousands of years, you just don't see it as much these days.
So I don't know, this one's wild and inventive for sure, but also fatalistic and unfocused. Plus there's a puppet, so don't say I didn't warn you. If all that sounds like your bag, by all means proceed, but this just isn't my cup of tea. Too weird. Look, you can forgive your parents or forget your parents, in the end I don't really care that much, just please, for the love of God, just stop singing about how hard it is to decide which to do. But if I've learned anything over the last 30 years of working in film production, it's that writers are going to write what they want and directors are going to make films the way they want, no matter how many people tell them that they shouldn't do things THAT way.
Also starring Marion Cotillard (last heard in "Dolittle"), Simon Helberg (last seen in " A Serious Man"), Devyn McDowell, Natalia Lafourcade, Angéle, Julia Bullock, Claron McFadden, Natalie Mendoza (last seen in "The Great Raid"), Kiko Mizuhara, Noémie Schellens, Kanji Furutachi, Rila Fukushima (last seen in "Ghost in the Shell"), Laura Jansen, Eva Van Der Gucht, Bettina Meske, David E. Moore, John Paval, Lemuel Pitts, Colin Lainchbury-Brown, Wim Opbrouck, Geoffrey Carey, Alberto Chromatico, Okon Ubanga-Jones, Gabriela Leguizamo, Rebecca Dyson-Smith, Graciela Maria, Russell Mael (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Ron Mael (ditto), Ella Leyers, Nastya Golubeva Carax, Leos Carax, Nino Porzio, Davide Jakubowski, and the voices of Catherine Trottmann, Hebe Griffiths, Rebecca Sjowall.
RATING: 4 out of 10 singing photographers
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