A famous stand up comedian, Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) and a famous opera singer, Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cottillard) fall in love, get married and have a baby called Annette. Annette, even as a baby, has a gift for singing just like her mother. 

Annette is a musical written by musical duo The Sparks Brothers (Ron and Russell Mael) and directed by French auteur Leos Carax, whose last film was 2012’s Holy Motors. 

You may at this point be aware that we are in avant-garde territory but just to be clear, this is a film that uses puppets to represent baby Annette on screen and features an opening scene where Carax, The Sparks Brothers and the cast move from a recording studio to the filming locations, whilst Adam Driver dons the wig he will wear for the film singing “may we start?”. 

I knew prior to starting the film to expect the unusual and the artistic. Twenty minutes into the film I still was not sure what the film was supposed to be about. At the hour mark I was convinced I was watching the worst film I had seen in quite some time. By the end I had perhaps softened that opinion somewhat but there is no way I could recommend this to anyone but the most die hard fan of one or more of the creatives involved. 

From a plot perspective it is both hugely conventional, artists struggle to maintain a relationship when one career starts to outpace the other. And spectacularly weird, a puppet baby that can sing. Ultimately if there was a deeper point I completely missed it. 

The presentation also features some interesting peculiarities. There is some interesting use of rear projection which I thought was successful but also some use of sparse sets that make the entire film appear like it is on a stage which I found less interesting. Perhaps the most ridiculous scene is Driver and Cotillard, both fully naked singing whilst Driver’s character performs oral sex. Frankly the commitment from them both for this scene is the only thing that stopped me laughing. 

But ultimately, the clincher for me was that the songs were absolutely atrocious. I have only recently heard of The Sparks Brothers due to the fact that Edgar Wright, writer/director of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and more has made a documentary about them. This perhaps may make me a heathen to some, but if this is representative of their musical oeuvre I am happy to be oblivious. I would not dream of listening to this soundtrack outside of the film ever. The songs, if that is what they can be called consist of repetitious statements by the characters about what they are doing or how they are feeling. “May we start?” “We are so in love with each other”. “I’m not drunk”. It is just mind numbing and uninteresting. Everyone can sing perfectly fine, wanting to hear what they are saying is another prospect entirely. 

Is everyone trying something challenging and artistic? Yes. 

Is it an absolute mess that requires real commitment to get to the end? Yes.