Annette: Leos Carax’s mind-blowing musical mystery is the whole Adam Driver show

Adam Driver has long enjoyed the role of a complicated scoundrel. Furiously combative but undeniably attractive, he pushed his way into Girls like the latest hipster fuckboy. Then he launched that maddening appeal to a galaxy far, far away as Kylo Ren, the dark hearted heartthrob from Star Wars. Bringing boiling rage and bitter love back to earth in Marriage storyDriver not only impressed critics, but he also earned his second Oscar nomination. Now he’s moving that same scoundrel niche into surreal terrain with Leos Carax’s provocative and quirky musical. Annette.

Don’t be fooled by the title. But nevertheless Annette Named after the daughter of two doll-faced characters, the story centers firmly on Driver’s latest rogue: Henry McHenry, a stand-up who treats comedy as a total contact sport. Henry, who calls himself the “Monkey of God”, takes the stage wrapped in a mangy green bathrobe, like a boxer on a losing streak. He doesn’t tell so many jokes, but instead attacks the audience with manic aggression, ordering them to laugh.

And they do, in a lively, rocking chorus, which quickly establishes that Henry is on top of his game. Swinging his mic cable like a whip, he is the master of the crowd, a god of the stage. Its body is muscular and rigid like a snake ready to attack. Their long limbs flail in high kicks and sweeping gestures, a dance that plays like a challenge to a fight. Naturally, Henry thinks of his performance in terms of violence. “I killed them, I destroyed them, I killed them,” she tells her lover Ann (Marion Cotillard), the opera singer. “How was your concert?” His performance was a noble aria about fear and death, which earned him great applause. Thinking about it, Ann smiles sublimely. “I saved them.”

They are an odd couple, not only because of their dissonant attitudes and art forms, but also visually. The American protagonist towers over the little French actress. When he pulls her in for a kiss, it’s unclear whether he’ll cradle her or crush her. Their on-screen chemistry is fierce. A dreamy love ballad sweeps the audience through their misty days and warm nights, where they make beautiful music together, literally and metaphorically. But this happiness is sadly short-lived. Marriage, career changes, and a baby push their relationship onto tense ground, hurtling them down a dark road that promises devastation.

The details of its decline are painfully familiar, drawn from a number of celebrity scandals, including accusations from #MeToo and even classic Hollywood speculation about real crimes. But Carax electrifies outdated ideas in style. For starters, Sparks: the quirky American pop duo Hot fluff director Edgar Wright has just outlined in his first documentary – he co-wrote Annettethe script and all its music. Brothers Ron and Russell Mael score great emotional moments with bombastic orchestration and express their sentiment in simple lyrics that are repeated over and over again with exuberance. Thus, “We Love Each Other So Much” is not just a title, it is the bulk of the ballad’s lyrics played as Driver and Cotillard relax into brilliant love scenes, including a much-talked-about portion in the that Henry is taking a break. From cunnilingus to singing a phrase on the lips of her lover. This moment of naked emotion in such a provocative pose is jarring and almost funny, which is true in much of Annette. It is not clear if that humor is intentional.

Some sequences are clearly meant to provoke laughter. For example, a garish series of gossip news that collides with narrative has energetic graphics, a raucous reporter, and comically awkward Photoshop art, meant to resemble paparazzi photos of the famous couple. Structurally, these scenes quickly provide exposure, but are also a mocking satirization of celebrity entertainment reports, making speculation about the private lives of public figures a feast. This is a recurring theme throughout the film: the tension between the real and the scenic. But where that line is drawn it often blurs, leading to murky readings of the film’s intent.

By displaying artificiality at all times, Carax pushes audiences out of the standard suspension of disbelief. The opening treats the film as a theatrical production. On a black screen, an MC orders the audience not to interrupt the performance by laughing, crying, farting, or breathing. The lights are then turned on in a recording studio, where Sparks is ready to perform. The brothers ask, “So can we start?” And so goes that eponymous song, which travels with them out of the studio and into the streets, where Driver, Cotillard and their co-star Simon Helberg team up, but without disguise. When the march is over, they cut off their street clothes and put on a more camera-ready wardrobe. From there the story begins. However, reminders of the artifice persist. Chief among them is the choice of performance for his daughter Annette.

Hinted in trailers and revealed in reviews of its Cannes premiere, Annette features a central performance of a puppet series rather than an actual child. There is no attempt to fool our eyes American sniper-style. Annette is a felt leather creation with visible joints. She is clearly a puppet, and we are destined to see that. Beyond emphasizing artifice within the narrative, making the girl a literal object reflects how her parents see her. For both of them, Annette is theirs as a toy or an art project.

Who will shape this talented girl becomes her final but sadly one-sided battle. Carax gives Henry’s aggressive antihero so much room to dazzle and exalt that Ann is woefully sketched. It feels like a character borrowed from the Christopher Nolan Doomed Wives collection, in which Cotillard has been underused before, like Startwan femme fatale.

Surprisingly, Annette proves to be a more attractive screen partner for Driver. The puppet team did such an outstanding job that it is absolutely haunting. The awkward physique of a small child, the soft but sad gaze of a distressed child, and the careless gestures of to be alive all are captured with extraordinary precision. (Bradley Cooper with that horrible American sniper doll could never.) Before long, it doesn’t feel absurd that Annette is a puppet. That’s in part because Driver never flinches from such a strange “reality.” He handles the boy with a mixture of tenderness and anxiety, as Henry handles all the things he loves. His chaotic energy in front of this fragile child creates a stomach-churning suspense, underscored by songs that sing more ambition than love.

On top of all this, Carax covers his film with a dream production design. Vivid colors explode, even in the darkest scenes and the deepest shadows. Los Angeles becomes a landscape of neon lights, sparkling pools, and gleaming lanterns. It is the glossy finish of a fairy tale, fitting in with the fantasy elements in which the waltz is danced. Annette ‘s second half. But amid all this flair, all this provocation, all this bombast, it’s unclear what Carax is trying to say, given that his unfolded sequences can be revealed as dreams, jokes, or feints.

Is Henry’s story intended to be a warning about toxic masculinity? Is it a lament for the sacrifices made to fame? Is the slippery loss of personal identity a tragedy? Is it a fable about the cannibalistic nature of creation? All of the above or none of the above is possible. Still, the answer may not matter, as the film is nonetheless a riveting, albeit shaky, journey full of color, full of song, and forgiving of art.

At two hours and 20 minutes, this musical delves into curious tangents, few of which give satisfactory results. But the movie is never boring, because Carax brings the primal imagination that made his movie Santos engines jaw-dropping, and turns it toward the expectations of Hollywood romance. The result is a twisted loving child who refuses to sing a sensible song. Maybe that was the point. Maybe Annette it’s less of a movie and more of a state of mind. Perhaps the bookends that serve to introduce the cast and orchestra are intended to urge us to enjoy the experience and not worry about what it meant. Or maybe the latest from Carax is accidentally indecipherable.

Whatever your intentions, Annette It is notable. It’s a thrilling collision of cinema, live concerts, stage shows and celebrity culture, shaken and released with abandon. Your message may be lost, but the emotions still hit hard, particularly in an ending that takes away the flash and artifice to focus on something pure, painful, and unforgettable. (For the full effect, keep the ending credits.) It’s enough that Carax has created a movie that throws us to the pavement with the intoxicating thrill of a live revelry show.

Annette It opens in theaters on August 6 and on Amazon Prime on August 20.