Annette (2021)

Annette is the kind of feverish, one-of-a-kind musical romance that reminds you cinema can still feel dangerous: Leos Carax turns celebrity love into an operatic nightmare-fairytale, staged with audacity, beauty, and a sense of showmanship that’s equal parts intoxicating and unsettling. Adam Driver throws himself into the role with raw, combustible energy, while Marion Cotillard brings a luminous, aching grace, and the film’s set pieces land like emotional thunderclaps rather than ordinary “numbers.” The vibe is dreamlike and provocative—more like being swept into a modern myth than settling in for a conventional drama—so if you need realism or tidy storytelling, it may not be your tempo. But if you’re on the fence and craving something bold, romantic, and genuinely singular, Annette earns your attention by refusing to be anything else.

Annette is aiming for a grand, operatic fever-dream about fame, love, and power, using musical spectacle and surreal symbolism (including that deliberately unsettling puppet child) to keep you off balance. The problem is that the story can feel more like an endurance test than an emotional ride: it’s long, oddly paced, and often so eccentric and self-conscious that the drama struggles to land. If you want a straightforward romance or a character-driven tragedy you can easily connect with, this will likely feel cold, silly in the wrong moments, and frustratingly opaque. Still, if you’re up for a bold art-house swing with striking performances and memorable imagery, it has the kind of audacity that can be hard to forget even when it doesn’t fully work.