The 2021 Cannes Film Festival kicked off on Tuesday with, well, a blast of hot air. Or, rather two. The festival is normally held in May, when attendees sometimes have to contend with rain, but otherwise enjoy mild weather. Because of COVID-related delays, though, the festival moved to July, hopefully for one year only. It’s very hot here, folks. And very humid. One doesn’t so much bake under the harsh Mediterranean sun as braise in it.
Wearing a suit or tuxedo, as many of us often have to do here, is like walking around in one’s own personal steam room. All the foot transit and outdoor waiting that Cannes always requires is that much harder in the clench of high Riviera summer. Added to that frustration is the necessary protocols to manage health and safety, which requires that all non-EU festivalgoers (whether they’re vaccinated or not) get a COVID test every two days, lest they risk being denied entrance to facilities. Wanting to avoid the infamous screening-queue crowding, Cannes launched an e-ticketing service on a specially designed website that barely works, slowing to a 404 error crawl every morning at 7 a.m. when badge holders log on to reserve newly released tickets. I have a theory that these glitches are intentional, meant to virtually re-create the stressful uncertainty of waiting in long screening lines, worrying about getting in.
It’s all a swampy headache. But poor us, right? These are relatively minor inconveniences (and perhaps life-saving measures) compared to the extremely rarefied privilege of being able to attend the festival. Many intriguing movies are on their way, giving attendees lots to be excited about. (Even when it seems that the locals and non-festival tourists couldn’t care less; as I squished and staggered through town in my tux on opening night, it seemed all eyes were on the Euro Cup match between Italy and Spain, not the Croisette’s red carpet. The jocks beat the art kids yet again!)
It’s a shame, then, that the festival began with that second gush of hot air, Leos Carax’s stultifying Annette, a daring and garish musical starring a go-for-broke Adam Driver and an underutilized Marion Cotillard.
Carax is an odd-duck filmmaker, committed to his particular fantastical, leering view of the world as he stages various dreams and nightmares. With Annette, though, he’s let some other collaborators into his idiosyncratic process: the pop duo Sparks, aka the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, who are credited as the screenwriters on the film and wrote all the music. Their tastes mixed with Carax’s create a sour meal, one that tells a story of the corrupting, corroding effect of fame while also just generally musing about men and their uncontainable awfulness.
The movie is about a bad, bad man—Driver’s shock-troll comedian, Henry McHenry—and it knows that to a point. But it’s also still fully about him, giving him the movie star spotlight while Cotillard’s Ann Defrasnoux, a world-renowned opera singer married to Henry, languishes and suffers in the dark. There is a rough plot to the film, tracing the course of Henry and Ann’s relationship and eventual parenthood, but it is mostly a showcase for the droning, modern opera scoring by the Maels and Carax’s bold aesthetic inventions. It’s a dull and long—really long—piece of preening self-regard, all arriving at a pat, obvious point that does not justify nor further clarify all the visual and aural indulgence.
Reactions from Cannes were unsurprisingly mixed—some raved, some ranted—while those paying attention from home quickly took note of, and highlighted on social media, some of the film’s most outlandish moments. Henry singing a kind of aria as he performs oral sex on Ann is the one that got most people chattering, followed by the fact that the titular child born of this union is, well, a CGI marionette doll. The film’s viral tics may be enough to get some curious people to check out the film when Amazon releases it in the States later this year, but I don’t know if Annette has enough true, resonant effect to really make a lasting impression.
I appreciate that the Cannes programmers commenced this year’s festival, a grand return after a year off, with something so audacious and polarizing. But too much of that audacity feels canned; Annette is awfully sweaty in its attempts to shock, titillate, and confuse. It’s a lot of nervy construction built around very little substance. Driver and Cotillard are admirably committed, and the film does occasionally soar to giddily surreal, big-burst musical highs. Not near often enough, though. Annette is the first big disappointment (for me, anyway) of this year’s festival. And it happened on opening night. Here’s to some happy surprises and met expectations in the 10 days to come, and to a sudden shift in conditions—both meteorological and technological—that returns this always special event to happier, more manageable climes.
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