The Little Mermaid

Year of release: 2023 Directed by Rob Marshall.             Starring Halle Bailey, Jacob Tremblay, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jonah Hauer-King, Javier Bardem, and Melissa McCarthy.

When the first teaser for Disney’s live action remake of The Little Mermaid dropped, the soundwaves surrounding it quickly became dominated by racist morons complaining that Ariel was no longer white with red hair. A part of me can’t believes I had to type that sentence in 2023, but here we are. What that toxic discourse covered up was how bad the teaser looked. I’m cynical enough to think Disney would not be above starting such racist bullshit as a marketing ploy, but regardless, the first focus on the film was the casting of Halle Bailey.

For the record, she is phenomenal and probably the best live action Disney princess to date. She’s substantially better than Emma Watson as Belle in the Beauty and the Beast remake, partially because her singing isn’t autotuned into oblivion, and partially because she captures the longing of a teenage mermaid for the unknown human world quite well. I look forward to seeing her in the adaptation of The Color Purple musical in December. It is also very nice to see a Disney princess and mythological creature portrayed as a person of color, and Disney and Rob Marshall deserve credit for her casting.

What Disney does not deserve credit for is the ableist rewriting of Howard Ashman’s lyrics. (Also the straightening of them, but more on that later.) In “Kiss the Girl” Lin-Manuel Miranda provides some “sanitized” words that stand out like a sore thumb, because apparently Disney executives correctly realized it was predatory to kiss a girl who can’t consent, but erroneously decided Ariel couldn’t consent because she can’t speak at that moment.

I’m very sorry to hear that executive at Disney are so out of touch with reality that they are unaware that sign language, gesturing, writing, and other forms of non-verbal communication exist. And that they seem to think that people who cannot speak are broken, inferior beings who can’t fall in love or express that. To make matters worse, Ursula erases Ariel’s memory so she doesn’t realize she needs to share true love’s kiss with Eric before three days or she reverts to a mermaid. For the supposed awareness around consent, that deviation from the original makes Sebastian, Flounder, and Scuttle’s forcing of the romance far more cringeworthy than anything in Ashman’s original lyrics.

As to why that deviation from the original film was added to a movie that mostly adheres to the original slavishly, I don’t know. It might be explained by the bloat that permeates the entire movie. Rob Marshall’s overriding attitude seemed to be “Why do something in two minutes, if you can do it in eight?” The only thing Ursula’s memory erasure does is add extra dialogue making the on-land romance between Ariel and Eric take longer.

At just over two hours, the movie is unquestionably too long. The first hour of it moves along passably, with “Under the Sea” being the one scene that doesn’t look like it was shot by a camera with a black nylon stocking over it. It is the best song in the score, and it deservedly won Menken and Ashman their first Oscar in 1990. Daveed Diggs was a fantastic choice to play Sebastian, and he delivers it beautifully. Marshall’s cutting to a school of dolphins for “down here all the fish is happy” was a bizarre choice, as the emphasis on the word “fish” with the imagery of dolphins took me right out of the song, but Diggs pulled me back in quickly, in spite of some other visual choices on Marshall’s part that make no sense.

Excuse me, but I need to get this out of the way.

THEY CUT THE BEST VERSE OF “POOR UNFORTUNATE SOULS!!!!!!!!” LIKE, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WERE THEY THINKING WITH THAT??????

Okay, now on to the moment where the movie really began to derail. Melissa McCarthy is fine as Ursula. She’s no where near as menacing or flamboyantly queer as Pat Carroll’s Sea Witch was, but I really don’t think that’s her fault. Her first two scenes before her big number are almost verbatim quotes of Carroll’s lines, which pales for anyone who enjoyed Carroll’s delivery.

More problematically, Marshall’s odd visual choices really came to a head in “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” When Ursula sings “Now it’s happened once or twice, someone couldn’t pay the price” she shows two merfolk being punished in the animated film. Here she holds up eight skulls of merfolk, which is substantially more than once or twice. The relentlessly dark palette of the film is probably most offensive in this song, with the dark blue being punctuated by bursts of orange, which is so uninspired color-wise that it’s depressing.

Even more problematically, the missing verse is the one about communicating without words and saying women are better silent anyway. Apparently the filmmakers decided a villain giving villainous advice was a problem, so they stripped the villain of some of her most iconic lines, which contribute to “Poor Unfortunate Souls” being the best Disney villain song. (Yes, I will die on that hill. Don’t argue that with me.) The other problem with omitting that verse is that the lyric and dramatic foil that Ashman set up between “Poor Unfortunate Souls” and Ariel’s wish in “Part of Your World” is gone too.

Ariel sings, “Bet you on land they understand, bet they don’t reprimand their daughters.” When Ursula sings, “Yes, on land it’s much preferred for ladies not to say a word, after all, dear, what is idle prattle for?” it not only shows the Sea Witch is subverting Ariel’s dreams while pretending to answer them, but it also forms a dramatic development through the song lyrics. Cutting that was honestly unforgivable.

One of the best aspects of the Disney renaissance was the way almost all the villains resurrected the queer coding of the 1940s and ‘50s. Pat Carroll’s butch, drag queen-inspired Sea Witch, has obvious lesbian undertones, of which McCarthy’s Ursula only has a faint reminiscence. The new revelation that Ursula is King Triton’s sister contributes to the straightening of the character by making her an evil aunt of the protagonist and not the flamboyant outsider she was in the 1989 film. The makeup copies the animated character, so the queerness is still there minimally, but the desire to control and manipulate a young woman is gone along with the missing verse of the villain song. This Ursula is only a power-hungry witch willing to use her niece as a pawn; the predatory and sexual undertones are eradicated.

Releasing The Little Mermaid on the last weekend before Pride Month, with its cuts and alterations to the lyrics of an iconic gay song-writer who died from AIDS was certainly a choice. That his song-writing partner had to write new songs that drastically pale in comparison to the work that largely started the Disney renaissance adds insult to injury.

For the record, I will also die on the hill that Alan Menken has never partnered with a lyricist as great as Howard Ashman. Steven Schwartz came close, but everyone else Menken has worked with is a notable step down. Menken and Miranda have written three new songs for this version of The Little Mermaid. Eric’s solo, “Wild Uncharted Waters,” is fine, even if it garners a deserved eyeroll for its introduction of on-the-nose similarities between Eric and Ariel by making them both rebellious teenagers from their opposite sex parents.

“The Scuttlebutt” is a fifth-rate Hamilton remix and an affront to humanity that is so jarringly different from the rest of the score that it feels like a painful slap in the face reminding us that Ashman died and Miranda does not even have half of his talent.

Ariel has one new solo, “For the First Time,” which makes no freaking sense at all. I am willing to overlook giving Ariel a song after she loses her voice and is supposed to be mute until she breaks Ursula’s necklace, since she can obviously still think. However, the lyrics are all about adapting to life on land, how difficult it is to walk because of gravity, how hard it is to wear a corset, and how uncomfortable shoes are. I’m sorry, but if Ariel still thinks a fork is a dinglehopper and you use it to style your hair, how the hell does she know what gravity, corsets, and shoes are, and how could she be singing about them? It would be as if Eliza Doolittle, after mastering the speech inflections of a British lady, sang a song about attending a ball and how wonderful it was without ever having been to a ball.

“Part of Your World” was an I want song that was largely responsible for launching the Disney renaissance. “Under the Sea” cemented it as a fabulous show-stopper, and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” made a clichéd villain a menacing, three-dimensional character while giving representation to the LGBTQ+ community at the height of AIDS. Nowadays Disney is largely devoid of original ideas, and while their desperate cash grabs usually have enough great material from their source to be watchable, they’re a far cry from the original that many people loved.

For the record, I never loved The Little Mermaid. I adore the score and might argue it’s the best work Menken and Ashman did for Disney—it’s really close between that and Beauty and the Beast—but the absurd happy ending that contradicts Hans Christen Andersen’s tragic fairy tale of longing for unattainable love was a weak point for me as soon as I was aware of it. There was a brief moment in the 2023 Little Mermaid when I thought a quasi-tragic ending might actually occur. (If it had occurred, I’d have written a very different review.) Unfortunately, Disney is afraid to take any risks and do anything that would alter the products they built their name on.

Around half-way through this movie, I felt bad for Halle Bailey. She was cast as a Disney princess, gave it her very, very good all, only to be stuck in a lifeless cash grab that bastardized the best aspects of the original film. I even felt a little bad for Rob Marshall, because most of the lousy creative decisions obviously came from higher up executives.

Ultimately, I was angry and sad to watch an iconic queer-coded character neutered, to watch a famous gay lyricist have his lyrics likewise neutered, and to watch yet another bloated, soulless remake from Disney that neuters the story of a gay author writing about his forbidden love who married a woman leaving him alone. If Disney wants to neuter anything as a force for good, perhaps they could neuter the careers of racist and homophobic fascists like Ron DeSantis and Trump instead of churning out remakes like this.

Personal Recommendation: D

Matilda the Musical

Year of release: 2022.                     Directed by Matthew Warchus.                 Starring Alisha Weir, Emma Thompson, Lashana Lynch, Stephen Graham, and Andrea Riseborough.

The two most important songs in Matilda the Musical are “When I Grow Up” and “My House.” Thankfully, in Matthew Warchus’ adaptation of the stage show he directed, those songs are beautifully filmed and performed, packing the emotional wallop they should.

Unfortunately, other than those two tearjerker moments, the emotional stakes are shockingly low, as this watered down version of Roald Dahl’s book and its musical adaptation receives a functional film adaptation. To be clear, nailing the two aforementioned songs places Matilda the Musical a league ahead of Rob Marshall’s disastrous dismantling of Nine, but several leagues behind Spielberg’s brilliant cinematic re-envisioning of West Side Story.

As to other recent Broadway adaptations, I preferred The Prom and Into the Woods, but Matilda over Les Misérables and obviously Dear Evan Hansen (though in the case of the latter, much of the fault lies with the equally offensive stage show).

I think most readers know that I love musicals and am deeply familiar with many of them. However, I know Matilda the Musical better than most shows, not only having seen it, but also having accompanied and directed the pit for a 2020 community theater production. (FWIW, I also read Dahl’s novel as a child but never saw the 1996 film.)

It’s an overused truism that what works on stage doesn’t work on film, and vice versa, but Warchus’ directing, which brilliantly created Dahl’s world of wonder and terror through a child’s eye on stage, feels sadly unimaginative on film. (It’s much better than Phyllida Lloyd’s attempt at recreating her stage direction of Mamma Mia! in the 2008 film adaptation, but that’s not a high bar.)

For instance, take the opening song, “Miracle.” The vibrant colors of the hospital as parents croon over their newborn infants feels like something out of a Dr. Seuss story, but the Wormwood’s home, Ms. Phelps’ traveling library are not much different. Even the supposedly intimidating school run by the sadistic Miss Trunchbull looks like a drabber version of the same thing. Given Tim Burton’s streak of misfires over the past decade, I won’t say Matilda the Musical would have been better had he directed it, but even at his worst, it would certainly have looked better.

Speaking of Burton and musicals, say what you want about the singing and cutting down of the score, but his Sweeney Todd captured a gothic Victorian world much better than Warchus’ very cheerful, brightly colored palette captures any of Dahl’s world, which is equal parts menace and wonder.

As to the staging of the numbers, there’s no consistency at all. “Miracle” welcomes us to a show about admiring parents as contrasted with the neglect and abuse of Matilda Wormwood at the hands of her parents. Eventually, it breaks into a fantasy performance complete with sequined costumes and microphones, not that different than Roxie’s fantasies in Marshall’s adaptation of Chicago. Then, Matilda’s “I want” song, “Naughty,” takes place as a dance across her home as if it’s happening in her world and not some imaginary fantasy. There is nothing wrong with either approach, but nearly every song shifts from one to the other. It’s sloppy and undermines the poignancy of Tim Minchin’s score (which is very good).

Perhaps Warchus was trying to set up the mix of childhood dreams versus realities that occurs in “When I Grow Up,” which is the heart of the show. As the children leave school after a day of witnessing horrific child abuse (more on that in a moment), they dream of the world as it is and as they know it should be. This is the strongest number in both the stage show and the film, and their naïve dreams of adulthood are effectively moving in their innocence, sense of wonder, and hope of escape.

As to the child abuse itself, the film is rated PG for “exaggerated bullying,” which initially seemed like an odd euphemism to describe the physical and psychological torture of children that Dahl wrote, but it’s really not inaccurate. As Miss Trunchbull, Emma Thompson is strangely miscast, and the sadistic headmistress is so unhinged that it is obvious from the beginning Matilda is going to get the best of her.

I love Emma Thompson and think she is one of the most talented actresses alive. There are several reasons I don’t care for her in this role. First, the role was written for a man in drag on stage, and while I’m not sure that suspension of disbelief would have worked in a film, the lower, darker range for which Trunchbull’s songs were written is lost with Thompson’s mezzo voice. Second, Thompson’s acting coupled with Warchus closeups of her is too subtle for a role that was written to be an eleven in terms of scenery chewing. I think of other similar villains (Jim Carrey’s Count Olaf, Robert Helpmann’s Child Catcher, even Thompson’s Baroness in Cruella), and they all were comical and menacing. The Trunchbull here is just comical.

As to the other villains (Matilda’s parents), Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough are largely wasted. They both have solo numbers in the stage show, which were cut from the film. Matilda also has an older brother in the show and novel, whose purpose is to show the blatant favoritism of their parents. He is also cut. All of this makes Matilda’s home life an underdeveloped afterthought that makes the neglect and emotional abuse of her parents seem like a joke. It also makes the antics of “Naughty” seem wholly unwarranted.

The lack of stakes for Matilda makes Dahl’s morbid world of corrupt idiot parents, evil authority figures, kind but frightened teachers, and scared children all shockingly dull. The outcome is never in doubt, even if one is not familiar with the story. To be sure, it’s a powerful story about standing up to the monsters in your life and building a family of love when your blood relations neglect their responsibilities, and the moments of tenderness highlighted in Minchin’s songs still come through, but it disappointingly lacks the emotional wallop that other versions of this story have.

One scene that does pack the emotional punch that it needs to is Lashana Lynch’s rendition of “My House.” As Miss Honey, Matilda’s tender yet timid teacher Lynch is easily the best of the cast, and she is given the most to do, despite her act one solo being cut as well. The casting of her parents makes that mystery obvious way too far in advance, but the “reveal” is still poignant without the surprise.

Regrettably, the filmmakers felt obligated to go for best original song Oscar and wrote a new finale for the movie. First, it takes the focus of the story away from Matilda and shifts who the protagonist is without any setup for such a shift. Second, like most attempts at that Oscar added to musical adaptations, the song is mostly forgettable. Third, the finale of the stage show is perfect, and it ruins that.

It is worth mentioning that this new finale is not the first time Warchus’ directing steals the story away from Matilda. Her act two solo, “Quiet,” is brilliantly sung by Alisha Weir, but editing the Trunchbull’s threats throughout it takes the moment of growth away from Matilda.

I would not deny that the stage version of Matilda the Musical has its flaws, but the energy and emotions packed into that production are some of the most moving and heartfelt, making it my favorite musical centered around children. Sadly, the film remains too much a shadow of that story to bring Dahl’s creation to life the way the musical did on stage.

Personal recommendation: C+

West Side Story

Year of release: 2021       Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, Mike Faist, David Alvarez, and Rita Moreno.

Most stories, and by extension most movies, have three acts. There is an exposition, a series of conflicts leading to a climax, and a resolution. Most stage musicals have two acts. What this necessitates is the end of act one being the climax, an eleven-o’clock number to keep the second act moving, and a finale that in most other stories would have come sooner. Some musicals work around this problem brilliantly; the climax that ends act one of Gypsy paves the way for the even more devastating finale of act two. The Phantom smashing the chandelier leads to his sabotaging an opera production with his literal presence. And the rumble that ends act one of West Side Story takes an entire second act to deal with the repercussions.

However, most films no longer have intermissions, and placing the dramatic climax at the halfway point of the narrative arc obviously does not work for a continuous two or two-plus hour story. It’s a problem for adapting musicals from stage to screen that Joel Schumacher tried unsuccessfully to work around in his 2004 The Phantom of the Opera, that Rob Marshall more or less succeeded with his 2014 Into the Woods, and one that Spielberg and Tony Kushner solve brilliantly in 2021’s West Side Story.

When I first heard Spielberg was adapting West Side Story, my thoughts were: 1) why can’t he adapt a musical that’s never received a silver screen treatment before? 2) the 1961 film is pretty good, and while there is obvious room for improvement, do we really need a new one? 3) will this be an adaptation of the stage show, or the 1961 film? While I’d still like to see Spielberg tackle a musical that’s never been filmed, the answer to 2) is a resounding yes, largely because the answer to 3) is that he adapted the stage show, not the older film.

I am one of the few West Side Story fans that I know of who vastly prefers the original order of “Cool” and “Gee, Officer Krupke,” and not the 1961 film’s switching of them. For one thing, there is too much tension and anger in the music of “Cool” for it to be a song about calming down after the rumble, and the flippant irreverence of “Gee, Officer Krupke” flows naturally from the rumble into the finale, continuing the cycle of violence.

When I checked the soundtrack listing, I was very pleased to see “Cool” was before the rumble in Spielberg’s West Side Story. I was less pleased to see it was sung by Tony (Ansel Elgort) to Riff (Mike Faist). However, that decision works fantastically. And even if it didn’t, the dance sequence that’s choreographed between Tony and the Jets over the gun that will ultimately end Tony’s life is so spectacular to behold that I would have forgiven the decision had it not worked.

The angular, tritone dominated melody of “Cool” allows it to work in this new context, because it now serves as a futile warning from Tony to Riff, much in the same way that Tony’s famous tritone dominated love song “Maria” indicates the love between the two leads is doomed.

As to “Gee, Officer Krupke” taking place before the rumble, the necessity of reducing the amount of time between the rumble and the finale makes perfect sense for a film. As such, having it take place as part of the leadup to the rumble works great.

Maria’s (Rachel Zegler) big solo “I Feel Pretty” takes place immediately following the rumble. In the stage show, it opens act two. Since Spielberg and Kushner reduced the amount of time between the rumble and the finale, here it opens what would be considered act three of the film. I loved its placement for so many reasons (the 1961 film moved it to pre-rumble, because it was thought to jarring to sing post-rumble). For one thing, the power of the music to begin a new section of the story is in keeping with the way the song was written. Secondly, hearing it immediately after watching two young adults murdered maintains the tragic nature of Maria and Tony’s romance as well as Maria’s disconnect from what just happened.

The other big solo that takes place post-rumble is “Somewhere.” In keeping with the stage show, it’s not a love duet between Tony and Maria (their love duet is in the first act), but a broken plea for a world that is better than the one we have. I won’t spoil who sings it (although it’s pretty easy to guess), but it was a classic Spielberg tear-jerker moment in the best possible sense.

While Spielberg’s West Side Story takes place in the late ‘50s/early ‘60s, he makes the cultural divide feel as present as if it took place today. Much has been made of his decision to leave the frequent Spanish speaking unsubtitled, and while it’s not particularly newsworthy if one is familiar with his other films, it does make the culture of the Sharks feel as natural and quintessentially American as that of the Jets.

The performances are uniformly excellent. Ariana DeBose impressed me in The Prom last year, and she’s even better here. Anita’s casual starting of “America” and having it turn into a showstopper only makes her later anger and hatred all the more relatable. Spielberg gets what is easily my favorite performance from Elgort; Zegler is a good soprano, and one role in particular provides the heart to the tragic story.

One of my favorite aspects of Bernstein’s score for West Side Story is the way he takes the love duet and turns it into part of the rumble quintet. It musically weaves together the anger, passion, hatred, and love of all the characters. Spielberg’s setting of it includes a dose of religion, sex, guns, tribal associations, idealism, and youthful confidence. It’s as if he saying this story is not just for the west side of Manhattan, but all of America. It’s all there in Sondheim’s lyrics, but Spielberg’s realization of it is what makes this a masterclass in musical adaptation.

Personal recommendation: A

Dear Evan Hansen

Year of release: 2021       Directed by Stephen Chbosky.   Starring Ben Platt, Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Colton Ryan, Amy Adams, and Julianne Moore.

Dear Alana Beck (as played by Amandla Stenberg),

I’m sorry you suffer from mental illness. It’s a bitch. Ask me how I know, or preferably, don’t. Despite one colossal mistake that this film glosses over, you also seem like the one character in a musical of half-developed sociopathic narcissists who actually has a touch of empathy and decency. I’m sorry you’re relegated to a supporting role for a massively unethical protagonist who regrettably shares my name. I would much rather have watched a musical about you.

You also sing “The Anonymous Ones,” which is the best song in Dear Evan Hansen. One major reason for that is it is the only song that works in context, showing support for all the people who suffer from mental illness in silence. I’m shocked to learn that it is a new song written for this film adaptation and not a part of the stage production. I guess I should take this moment to admit that I never saw the musical on stage. However, after seeing the film and reading the synopsis of the stage show, I’m glad I never got around to it, because as bad as this film is, the stage show sounds even worse.

The majority of songs are not bad on their own accord, divorced from the plot of the musical. However, in context, most of them are horrific. “For Forever” sounds like a beautiful ballad about friendship, but in reality, it is a callous and cruel deception. “You Will Be Found” is seemingly an inspirational power ballad, but the lie it is based on makes it jaw-droppingly cringeworthy and offensive. “Only Us” comes across as a love duet between two awkward teens afraid to share their emotions. However, it’s exploiting a suicide so a socially inept boy can get into his crush’s pants. It’s gross.

Writing a conditional love duet was something Rodgers and Hammerstein perfected in Carousel with “If I Loved You.” However, Carousel is a horror story about abuse and communal victim blaming (despite mediocre productions that play it as a straightforward romance—including but not limited to the atrocious film adaptation). It makes sense that the “love” is conditional. Dear Evan Hansen is a coming-of-age story about a mentally ill high schooler who makes one big mistake. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the film’s horizon that Evan is a sociopath or incapable of loving Zoe.

Given your own mental health struggles, your decision to befriend Evan Hansen (Ben Platt, reprising his Tony award-winning role from Broadway, despite clearly not being a teenager on film) makes perfect sense. It would seem you have found a kindred spirit. It stretches credibility a little bit that you just know Evan is on antidepressants, but that’s hardly a problem giving the other issues with this film. Your passion in founding the Connor Project to honor the memory of your deceased classmate is honorable and understandable. I’m sorry it was all based on an egregious lie.

There is something very important I have to say about suicide and threatening to commit suicide (which, for the record, comes from my therapist). Threatening to commit suicide, regardless of the extreme pain one is in, is inherently manipulative and narcissistic. Committing suicide and leaving a trail of grieving people to deal with the ramifications is an appallingly selfish act. That in no way belittles the intense pain and hopelessness that depression causes; it instead acknowledges the reality that depression is a horrific illness that harms more people than just the ones who suffer from it. Please note I do not think anyone who commits suicide is selfish; I’m describing what depression does.

Connor’s (Colton Ryan) decision to commit suicide is perfectly in keeping with his aggressive, bullying personality. As much as his mother (Amy Adams) wishes to deny that aspect of her son’s personality, there is no escaping that reality. Neither can Evan escape that reality, as he uses Connor’s suicide to weasel his way into the family he wishes he had.

While depression can make one lash out and behave in ways that they would otherwise think abominable, it is not an excuse for lying to people or treating them like shit. And that is what Evan Hansen does. To some extent, the musical realizes that, but when his mother (Julianne Moore) absolves him with “So Big/So Small” because of his anxiety, it’s obvious the film is too.

If that absolution isn’t disgusting enough, when Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) asks to meet Evan at the film’s end, it is mercifully not a reuniting of the couple, but it is an unearned reconciliation between them. Zoe says she wishes they could have met for the first time then, because somehow that would have changed Evan’s many deceptions, but at the same time the film seems to be saying how wonderful it is that this healing came from Evan’s deceptions.

I firmly believe good, even great, things can come about as a result of terrible things. However, earnestly turning a teenage suicide into both a whitewashing of reality and into meaningless platitudes of everyone’s self-worth is not merely tasteless but offensive as well. It’s as if someone watched Heathers and decided that the ruthless satire would be better if replaced with mawkish sentimentality, because that would make the same portrayal of cliques and faux friendships so much more palatable. The brilliance of Heathers is that it pulls no punches in deconstructing the toxicity of cliques and phony appearances divorced from reality. Dear Evan Hansen takes many of the same scenarios and plays them straight, because glossing over the horror of what’s actually happening creates a false sense of a feel-goodness, which in turn creates a larger audience of fans who can deal with a serious subject while never having to feel uncomfortable.

As someone who suffers from severely debilitating depression, I wanted to scream at Evan several times: “That’s not how it works; that’s not how any of it works.” From his letters of bad advice to his cringeworthy speech in memory of Connor, none of this musical is inspiring or moving. As catchy as the songs are, their service to an appalling story makes them more off-putting than anything else.

The kindest thing I can say about Dear Evan Hansen is that it is full of good intentions. However, the old saying about the road paved with good intentions holds true here. If you really want to see a musical about the realities of depression handled with sensitivity and insight, we still have Next to Normal and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Sincerely,

A musical lover and fellow anonymous one

Personal recommendation: D-

Annette

Year of release: 2021       Directed by Leos Carax. Starring Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard, and Simon Helberg.

After watching Annette, the two movies I’m most reminded of are The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Mulholland Drive. And if your taste in any way overlaps with mine, on the basis of that comparison and recommendation, you should drop everything and see Annette as soon as possible. Definitely do not read further until you’ve seen Annette, unless you do not care about spoilers.

I compared Annette to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Mulholland Drive, because Jacques Demy and David Lynch are the two artists whose work has the most similarities with Annette. Annette is an obvious spiritual and thematic successor to Demy in that it takes a story that cross-examines musical tropes while also magnificently and stunningly paying homage to said tropes. At the same time, it shows the dark underside of the world of performance, fame, and jealousy in a way that questions where the performance ends and where reality begins.

The blurring of the line between performance and reality starts with the opening scene. Director Leos Carax turns to the Mael brothers, the film’s composers, and says, “So may we start?” The brothers turn that into a riff, which in turn becomes a song, which in turn the cast and chorus join in as they transform into their characters.

Another stunning sequence shows the merging of the line between performance and reality as world renowned soprano Ann Desfranoux (Marion Cotillard) is performing an opera. The backdrop of the set opens up to reveal an actual forest that she steps into before returning to the reality of the stage and its prop forest. The performance is both symbolic of a liberating, fantasy dimension and at the same time a constricting reality.

Ann’s relationship with standup comic Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) functions much in the same way. It is both an enthralling, passionate affair that fulfills both of them, and at the same time a dangerous clash of personalities and careers that constricts around them.

Driver is magnificently unlikable as Henry; it’s a testament to his acting abilities that he can make a character so repugnant and fascinating at the same time. His brooding demeanor perfectly captures Henry’s dangerous side. Even from the opening number as the actors transform into their characters, Driver’s expressions hint at the type of character he is going to play. The same can be said of Cotillard, who is sublime as his better half and shines like a ray of grace throughout the film beginning with that opening number.

The story functions much like a typical opera or musical love affair, with a central couple passionately in love and another party interested in ending that relationship. The third party here is Ann’s accompanist, later turned conductor, played by Simon Helberg. At least, the first half (or act) of the film functions that way. The second half is where the Lynchian nightmare, which had been simmering just under the surface, really takes hold.

Perhaps the strongest connection to Demy is that Annette asks the question what if the whirlwind romance of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg had worked out, and what if that was a tragedy that pushed the characters just ever so much further. That is the basis of the nightmare of the second half (act), and that is where the horror of fame, jealousy, and living vicariously through a performer really becomes apparent.

The relationship of the conductor does not become complicated with Ann as would be expected, but with Henry. After Henry kills Ann—on board a yacht, in a scene that is obviously staged on set and yet a dangerous portal to another fantasy realm—and exploits their daughter Annette for her miraculous voice, the conductor joins him in promoting Annette, and becomes convinced he is her father.

It should also be pointed out that Ann’s death recalls one of the most infamous celebrity deaths, Natalie Wood’s, which is yet another example of the fine line between performance and reality that Annette walks throughout its entire runtime.

If The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Mulholland Drive are the first two influences on Annette, then Gypsy is the third. As Henry exploits Annette, her status as a puppet becomes ever more apparent. And Annette is played by a disturbingly life-like puppet. First, she was on object of her mother’s affection, then an object for her father’s second career, and then an object of possession between two men who both want to claim her as belonging to them.

While it’s fairly obvious that Annette will transform into a real girl at some point, the moment at which she does is magnificent and better than anything I anticipated. Henry is finally in jail for two murders and the doll comes to visit him. As they begin conversing, a child (Devyn McDowell) walks from the back of the room to replace the puppet. On the one hand, this is another example of blurring the line between performance and reality. At the same time, it is the first instance of Annette exhibiting agency for herself. The shot of the doll left behind on the floor of the prison cell is a visually stunning commentary that Henry’s and Annette’s old lives are over.

The lyrics for that scene are magnificent. Henry insists he loves Annette, and she responds that he can’t love her. It is certainly true he will never be a father to her, and he made her life and her performances all about himself. For a story about white male mediocrity erupting into violence, the straightforward simpleness of a child’s rebuttal is more powerful than the justice that Henry is being served in prison.

Speaking of simpleness, all the lyrics of the Mael brothers are equally straightforward and repetitive. For instance, in the love duet Henry and Ann repeatedly sing, “We love each other so much,” and nothing else. All love duets in operas or musicals express that sentiment, but here the lyrics blatantly state it, thus exposing the mechanics of the song and purpose of any love duet. The magnificent opening number functions very similarly. “So may we start” becomes a refrain that acknowledges what is happening (the musical is starting), with the chorus echoing “may we” (mais oui). That is yet another brilliant example of performance blending with reality; it extends from the visuals to the actors to the lyrics.

Carax is more than up to walking that line with perfect balance, and he is aided by a phenomenal cast, and a phenomenal score by the Mael brothers (aka Sparks). It may seem strange that a Sondheim fanatic such as myself enjoyed lyrics this simple and repetitive, but they so perfectly contributed to the ever-present blurring of fantasy and reality that I thought it was a stroke of genius.

As to whether Henry is meant to be a great standup comic or a mediocre provocateur, I felt it was definitely the latter. His audiences clearly come to see “the Ape of God” because of his offensive schtick. Driver does a great job of connecting the insensitive and repellant nature of Henry’s “jokes” with his jealousy and violent tendencies. Even the lovemaking scenes between Henry and Ann contain some of those red flags as Henry tickles Ann against her will and later jokes about it.

How Henry and Ann came together and what they saw in each other is never addressed in the film. It’s also completely beside the point. Their relationship is riffing on the toxic relationships often found in operas and some musicals (e.g. Carousel). I believe the first opera Ann performs in is a fictitious opera that the Mael brothers wrote music for. However, we do see a billboard that she performed in Bluebeard’s Castle.

Bluebeard’s Castle is about a newly married bride who insists on opening all the doors to her husband’s castle against his will. As he implores her to stop, she discovers more horrors behind each door until it’s too late to leave. Warning signs are there for Ann all along. By the time she notices them, namely in the brilliantly filmed #MeToo dream sequence, it’s too late for her to leave as well. Like Bluebeard’s bride who is ultimately forced to stay in the castle forever, Ann becomes trapped in Henry’s world.

In an attempt to leave that world, Ann haunts Henry beyond her death. It’s implied she gives Annette her amazing voice, as if taking over a part of her child’s identity is the only way she can achieve justice for herself. This is another example of why Annette is played by a puppet, but also a tragic instance of one victim having to objectify someone else to survive. Henry’s toxic masculinity has more victims than just the two corpses.

Ultimately, everything has to come to an end: Annette as a puppet, Henry’s crimes, Ann’s revenge, their careers, the music, and the film itself. That happens once the illusion is shattered, and no performance can overcome the mistreatment of a child. It is quite possible that Carax decided to have Annette played by a puppet to avoid any exploitation of a child. Or it could have been another way of drawing attention to the mechanics of the performance itself and demanding the viewer suspend their disbelief. Either way, when McDowell enters for the final scene, Henry can no longer joke, Ann can no longer sing, and as Annette leaves the performance world behind, the music can no longer play.

The opening voice over forbids breathing throughout the show, and while it’s meant as a dark joke foreshadowing Henry’s offensive standup routine, it also is a fitting descriptor of the film, through which I sat enraptured for over two hours. And then, after the final scene which will easily be my favorite scene of any film this year, it’s time to stop watching and for the performances to end.

Personal recommendation: A+