The Trailer For The New Leos Carax/Sparks Rock Opera Annette Looks Amazing
![](https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2021/04/Annette-trailer-1618841144.jpg)
Sparks wrote a rock opera, and that rock opera looks like it’ll be incredible. Ron and Russell Mael, the two brothers behind the long-running art-pop trio Sparks, wrote the new film Annette, which stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard and which will be the English-language debut from the great French art-film director Leos Carax. The movie’s first trailer showed up online today, and it kicks ass.
Annette is Carax’s first film since the hallucinatory 2012 opus Holy Motors, and it’s also his first musical. (Holy Motors technically wasn’t a musical, even if it did have amazing musical moments like this.) The Mael brothers have said that 95% of the film’s words will be sung, not spoken. Annette will open this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and it’ll run in competition for the festival’s Palme D’Or prize. After a pandemic-related postponement, the festival is now set to begin 7/6.
Amazon has the American rights to distribute Annette, which tells the story of a celebrity couple and of the arrival of their child. The trailer is full of dramatic shots — a wolf howling, a boat tossing on waves, Adam Driver piloting a motorcycle through dark and deserted streets. Check it out below.
Annette will actually be the second Sparks-related feature from a much-loved director to debut at a major film festival this year. Back in January, Edgar Wright’s new documentary The Sparks Brothers premiered at the virtual version of the Sundance Film Festival.