Annette (2021)

Annette is truly amazing, truly incredible, and it's a truly Masterpiece, Annette is a dark musical movie that i've never seen before, the way they told the story with 90% of the film with only a music while they tell the story is so easy to follow, added with Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard absolutely stunning performance, Annette it's 2 hours and 20 minutes full of depression yet it's incredible, Annette is definitely one of the best films of the year.

Fmovies: I like the main actors here, when I saw the initial trailer some time back I wrote it on my calendar, I was anxious to see it.

It is a very peculiar movie, mostly using the form of singing dialog. A recurring one is the melody "We love each other so much." However as the story moves along we wonder if Driver's stand up comic character really can love anyone.

It is long, I watched it in probably four different sittings, roughly a half-hour each time. I really was entertained by the experimental approach and its emotional extremes. However if you strip it all down it is a plain story. For me the most interesting scene is about 10 minutes from the end, when dad and Annette, now a young girl, do a face-to-face singing number, I was taken aback by how good and with proper emotion the young girl's singing and acting was.

I am glad I watched it, I like to experience all kinds of approaches in movie-making, but I didn't even invite my wife to join me, I know she would not have lasted 15 minutes. I would think most mainstream movie fans would NOT enjoy this one and watch it to its conclusion.

At home, on Amazon streaming.

You don't go into this film blindly, as if you're going to watch a mainstream film, wondering "will it be good?" You also don't go into this film because you're a Driver/Cotillard/Helberg/puppet fan. You go into.this film as a fan, knowing, "getting", or think you "get" Sparks or Carax. It's the Maels vision of their concept album, manifested into a scripted film. Getting, or thinking you get Sparks is a very important part of the mindset you need to appreciate this output. I've been a 45 year Sparks fan. I see them around cafes and various parties in LA. They're incredible siblings. They're anomalies. When you meet them, they are normal, nice, affable people, but their visions of creativity (and nonstop work ethic) have no boundaries. They experiment with and push the the edges of the evolution of their craft. If you've followed their evolution of their music, you can see this film being perfectly what it should be. Maybe not for everyone.

I saw the film at the LA preview a couple days ago, where the brothers also played a music set before the film. The film can be slow in parts - but in the end, I left the film the way I believe the Maels/Carax intended - feeling weird, somewhat uncomfy, amazed, and satisfied all in one.

That's my feeling - I hope I've experienced what was intended.

Annette fmovies. What an extraordinary film...I've not seen anything like it before.

It's not a "musical" in a traditional sense, almost all the dialogue is sung so I'd say it is more like an opera. The songs frequently use repetition and seemingly simple rhythms to get their message home - a case in point being the childbirth scene and its "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in" musical mantra.

It is stylised, odd, beautiful, ugly, tender, brutal and surreal. And so much more.

The effect of having Annette as a puppet reminded me of seeing War Horse on stage - how something that is clearly artificial can, through tiny gestures, portray and evoke such emotion.

I'm still processing what I saw. I need to see it again.

This is some very strange movie, but I kind of liked it and stayed interested in how the story would end. Had some very weird decisions and shots in it, but all in all I appreciated the efford and the 'unperfectness' it showed. Also it leaves a lot of space for interpretations. Driver and Cotillard are top-notch and even Helberg fitted in quite well. Drivers 'comedy'-shows were great! All in all I recomment the movie to all arthouse-lovers. If you want to watch a blockbuster, go somewhere else.

This film reminded me of a new wave of opera directors, who, it seems, only want to find an interesting way to make another performance and not to tell a new exciting Story. I assume that opera directors don't have to find new stories anymore, as the audience doesn't even want a new story, they are much more interested in an another original look at the existing one.

With all this out of the way, I think, that "Annette" is not being understood correctly. The story (even if it's slow and dull) isn't the only thing that makes a movie. If you find yourself watching this film again, pay attention to the acting and editing of the movie. If not for editing I would have assumed that I'm watching a recording of a modern opera or a theater piece. That's why I can recommend this film only to the dauntless among you, namely to the opera fans, who want to see something modern without an additional classical orchestra, and also to the "Sparks" fans, who no matter what will be really happy to hear "Spark" songs in an expensive musical video with a transparent plot.

I have 2 grades for this picture. If I was grading a movie I would have given it 6/10. If opera than 8/10. At average the picture gets 7/10.