Audaciously experimental film rips into celebrity culture

In Annette, an edgy stand-up comedian, Henry McHenry (Adam Driver), and class act opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard) enter into a whirlwind celebrity romance that ends tragically after her stardom begins to eclipse his. Their mercurial daughter Annette - played mostly by a marionette - then becomes a star in her own right. It's A Star is Born. It's La La Land. It's about ambition and fame. It's about parenting. It's nigh on indescribable and like few other musicals you have ever seen. And it's arguably the most original and challenging film of 2021 so far.

Directed by singular French director Leos Carax, whose last film, Holy Motors (2012), was equally opaque, written and scored by under-the-radar musical trailblazers Sparks (who themselves were the subject of Edgar Wright's exhaustive documentary The Sparks Brothers earlier this year) and headlined by one of Hollywood's most adventurous actors Driver, Annette has the makings of a pretentious mess with next to zero commercial potential - inaccessible to mass audiences. But Annette is also a testament to cinematic creativity. It has some seriously toe-tapping songs (the catchy opening tune reflexively asks if we, the audience, are ready for this film). In an age of bland IP, the film needs to be applauded for having the audacity to merely exist.

The film is classically structured and follows the tried and true boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back formula - with some outre twists that make it something entirely original. Carax and regular cinematographer Caroline Champetier's visuals are almost aggressively cinematic, positioning the film somewhere between fantastical yarn and painterly exploitation of love. The film takes sly swipes at celebrity culture in Ann's grandiose arias, Henry's hilariously "innovative" comedy act and the TMZ-ish gossip channel that updates us on their progress.

Carax's work has been described as willfully bizarre, obtuse and deranged among other things, and that is true of Annette. Some of the film's most arresting moments are its most constructed (a storm, a Super Bowl-style performance). But like Holy Motors, it is also poetic, and a wonderful experiment with form that dances a fine line between genius and disaster. Love it or hate it, that is what makes Annette such a treat.

The cast throws itself wholly into the experiment. Driver is his usual chameleonic self whose uneasy vocals work for the uneasy Henry. Cotillard wades back into tragic singer territory with her turn as the modern, sexy Ann, and Simon Helberg (Florence Foster Jenkins) injects just the right amount of dramatic tension into the narrative as The Accompanist, who is also in love with Ann. But it is young Devyn McDowell who puts a stunning exclamation point on the film with a somber five-minute turn as the human Annette. Without her, the build-up to the climax would have fallen to pieces.

Annette isn't for everybody, but by the same token it won't evaporate from memory quickly, regardless of what one's opinion of it might be. The fat running time never feels egregious, and despite the serious facade, the film is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. It takes a true master to craft something quite this weird. Look for it on both this year's Best of and Worst of lists.