God, why can’t Adam Driver tickle and lick my feet? Life isn’t fair

Towards the end of the film, the red bold letters “QUIET” are seen, and that perfectly reflects my feeling towards the majority of the film. Annette is a musical through and through, and while admittedly I may be a bit bias due to my remarkable distaste for this genre, I can’t help but feel Annette’s musical numbers and score are far too unremarkable to warrant their presence in the film. In short: I wish this wasn’t a musical because all the musical numbers weren’t really my thing.

With that being said, there is much to praise about Annette, from its clear stylistic vision, bold critique of entertainment and art, the nuanced conceptualization of perspective, and mesmerizing lead performances. I admittedly found some of its symbolism and themes more heavy-handed than needed, however, I’m unsure how much of that just feeds into its ironic overly theatric execution.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think this film had pacing issues, some underdeveloped relationships I wished were slightly fleshed out, and annoying musical numbers, however the ending is one of the most sobering, heartbreaking, and powerful endings I’ve seen in a long time, and strangely perfectly counteracted all the overzealous, bizarrely eccentric moments that came before it. 

I’m conflicted between a 7 and an 8 but I think I’ll leave it at a low 8 for now.

7.8 / 10