"we love each other so much..."
"we love each other so much..."
"we love each other so much..."
"we love each other so much..."
"we love each other so much..."
"we love each other so much..."
"we love each other so much..."
"we love each other so much..."
"we love each other so much..."

I remember seeing the musical scene in Carax's previous cinematic engine a couple years ago now, and while it was one of my least favorite parts of that movie, it made more a bit more interested of when I saw his next film would be a musical in the vein of Demy's Umbrellas of Cherbourg or even the operas of old. Annette was a title that has pretty much been on my mind for a while. And finally, I got to see the film...

It was one of the most disappointing films in a while.

Before I explain why, I will say aspects that I loved.
The directing is really good. Definitely something I'm fine with Cannes giving the Best Director award to this film. There are many great sequences with long takes and very well done coordination, with the cinematography looking really great on top of that. Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard are great as usual. They definite carry the entire film, with Driver specifically in the second half, and their singing is also really well done. There is a lot well done technically here, but unfortunately two of the biggest issues with this movie is the script and music.

You might be wondering why I copy and pasted the song "we love each other so much...". This is because of a couple reasons. I saw a clip of this movie from the livestream at Cannes, and when this showed up I would be really, really lying when I say didn't feel really worried for the film going in now afterwards. I thought to myself, "Is this really the best they could do with lyrics?", and unfortunately that repetition and borderline emptiness in that was represented through the majority of this film. I have never listened to much of the Sparks Brothers. i would imagine they can write good songs, but most of the songs in this movie were very disappointing. Mainly from a lyrical sense.

At first it was a little difficult to pinpoint what the was really the main problem that created these flaws and I think I know why now. The way lyrics/screenplay is written and the way the film is paced makes me really not give a shit that much and even worse, it became very manipulative. Especially in its main conflict. To put it simply, Henry is a poorly written character. Not because he is "bad". The movie knows it, but it is just that I felt nothing because I really didn't know him. The movie really has a pacing problem where for some reason, it focuses on scenes that go on forever and scenes that are way too short. Somehow both of these happens in this movie. I don't care about their relationship, I don't care about the "shocking" midpoint, and I definitely don't feel emotional by the ending. By the end, I thought, did any of it really matter, because I felt every scene that was supposed to help put more of an impact and make me care was mostly cut from the movie. I felt very little for anything that was happening. And this is sad because I wanted to love this movie. Carax is at his biggest like there could be everything but yet ironically left out the parts for me that i could care. No matter what avant-garde moment happened, no matter if there were a couple good songs, I got almost nothing out of this and I never like the feeling of purposeless emptiness when a film comes to a close.