'Annette' with Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard

I saw 'Annette', the motion picture musical written by Sparks and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. It is beautifully done and the actors give great performances, but it is hard to love. I do recommend everyone to go and try, though, as it is worth it.

The film has the form of a fairy tale. This point is emphasised by the opening and closing segments, where the actors introduce and close the narrative as themselves, not in role. These segments also help to lighten the mood, quite necessarily, as the fairy tale is a dark one.

Adam Driver plays a hard-hitting 'comedy' man, very popular in spite of his dark humour and audience insulting. Marion Cotillard is his contrast, a sweet opera star, who sings, sings, sings and dies, dies, dies every night - which turns out to be an omen. Their marriage is a major showbiz event.

In the beginning of the fairy tale, Adam Driver sings about how easy it is to love her and understand why, but about himself he is not so sure. He gets nasty as his arc of popularity turns downward and hers continues rising. He turns sadist and plays to her submissive traits. He tickles her 'to death', as they say, but not quite.

He turns out to be a drunken loser, who doesn't act when his wife is about to be swept of the deck of their yacht in storm. She gets killed.

The rest of the story is about he exploits their baby daughter as a miracle singer, who is haunted by her mother's spirit. He kills another man, the accompanyist of  both mother and daughter, and disappears behind bars. When his young daughter visits him there, she does not forgive him - end of story. Of course, there is a lot more detail of interest, but you'll have to see for yourself.