Annette (2021, Musical from Leo Carax and Sparks)

[Small Man Big Horse]

Deeply strange musical from Holy Motors director Leo Carax and Sparks duo Ron and Russell Mael, where stand up comedian Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) dates and then marries opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard)

Spoiler alert

and then is pretty much responsible for her death while at sea. Their child Annette (a weird mix of cgi and puppetry) is a wunderkind though, and he takes her on tour with a never named famous conductor (The Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg) who had a relationship with Ann before she got together with Henry.

[close]

It's one of those musicals where almost all the dialogue is sung but there aren't many conventional songs (though there are a fair few I suppose, just often quite short) and at two hours and twenty minutes it's overlong, there were times when I was captivated, times when I was slightly confused (

Spoiler alert

the cgi is oddly poor, and when we eventually see Annette as a real life girl the performance is stunning so I found myself wishing they'd used her more

[close]

) and slightly frustrated as there's the occasional bit which is a bit on the nose or obvious

Spoiler alert

and given what he does in the movie I've concerns over how sympathetic it is to Driver's character

[close]

. It's a movie I have a feeling I'll be thinking a lot about over the next few days, as an enormous fan of Holy Motors I have to admit that my initial response is that it was slightly disappointing, but at the same time there's a lot here which is quite unique and there were elements I loved. 7.7/10

[Keebleman]

I enjoyed this quite a lot.  Loved the start, but then it sagged.  Came back strong once the drama kicked in. 

The music was good but the score was very short on actual songs.  Most numbers consisted of the same phrase repeated over and over.  Visually it was fantastic, always good to look at, never getting stale.

But Adam Driver's 'comedy' routines were excruciating.  OK, so they were intended to show what a shallow, empty ninny he was but did we have to be shown it twice? And at such punishing length each time?

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

i shouldn't have uncovered your spoiler bit but i can't ever resist not knowing

d'oh

glad it's good tho. i'm big on muvais sang and holy motors

[chveik]

i love sparks but i can't stand driver and thought holy motors was shite. quite the conundrum

[Keebleman]

i love sparks but i can't stand driver and thought holy motors was shite. quite the conundrum

Then I think you should ignore the two negatives and support Sparks.  Such a niche act can't have its fans abandoning them because of peripherals.

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

holy motors was shite.

[C_Larence]

That (and i suppose the chimp family) were the only sections that were mildly entertaining.