Annette and the Glory of Love
*mild spoilers for Annette
Valley Frances Rich entered into this world at 9:42 AM on July 26th. Not crying. Not squirming. Just a peaceful transition from her mother to my hands. The left hand cradling her head and the right supporting her lower half. Her tranquil seconds old existence had put a calmness over me. I quickly but not hurried set her on her mother’s chest. I shed one tear and smiled beneath my mask. I stood there staring at her and waiting for someone to tell me what I should be doing. No one ever did. I eventually just sat down while still staring at her. There wasn’t much for me to do.
Annette begins with a wry message saying no noises, including farts, or breathing will be tolerated during the show. Then it proceeds to let you know it knows it is a movie. Not just a movie, but a rock opera. Tuning their instruments, marching along, singing a song asking for the audiences consent to start the show. Every important player in the movie stepping along and confident in their stride. A guiding hand into the unique universe of the movie. Most filmmakers and writers would just throw you into an ambitious story like this one. Make you catch up to them. The band Sparks, Ron and Russell Mael the writers of the script and all the songs, want to hold your hand and ease you. Readying you for quirks but not splashing you in the face with cold water.
When it was hours of my partner in pain during pre-labor I was questioning why I did this to her. Maybe it was the wrong choice. I would do anything to let her pain be gone right now. I was extremely bothered to see her suffering. I know some women go days in pain during the process and I salute them with both arms and will petition to have a day named after them. But, this was me seeing the love of my life miserable and in the worst pain I’ve ever seen her in. And everyone acting like it is normal. Because it is to them and too so many others who have experienced it. Getting to a place where she was okay was all I wanted. Our life was filled with the greatest of love. Zero fights, decent to good communication and leaning on each other. The kind of support that feels like weight lifting from your body. Any problem we had was us versus it and never versus each other.
Henry McHenry, a name fitting for the chuckle I gave seeing it on the marquee for his one man show called THE APE OF GOD. Jumping around and singing impromptu songs like a UFC fighting Bo Burnham. Played by Adam Driver in one of the greatest screen performances in years. He brings a physicality to this brute and those monkey qualities needed to demonstrate his posturing but also deep need to be seen for the little boy he is. He does “mildly offensive” humor and pleases the crowd fine. Nothing spectacular. Needing to be taken seriously but also miserable if they aren’t laughing. Forcing them to laugh and chastising them for being dumb enough to do so.
After a night of worry and pain she decided to get the epidural. She didn’t want to for a variety of reasons. The nurse said the partner can’t be in there for this procedure. So I went and got breakfast. Amounted to what was essentially a fancy lunchable, some chips, and an unsweet tea because I am “healthy” now but also don’t like good flavors I guess. I get a call eight minutes later to come back up. Her water has broke and they see her ready to come out. 12 minutes later I was doing the aforementioned cradling. In the time it takes for an episode of Moral Oral I went from exhausted and worried for my partner to elated and relieved to be a father and see my wife finally get to relax. She said labor and delivery was much easier than the hours before it. I would understand and expect it to be an awful experience and she said she knows she is lucky. She was wiped out but handled everything so well and I was impressed.
Ann dies every night for a captive audience. Played by Marion Cotillard in a performance that redeems her last scene in The Dark Knight Rises in more ways than one. She sings her heart out, collapses, and is showered with praise. Applause ringing from the rafters as flowers fall to the stage. A renowned opera singer that has fallen in love with the apeish comedian Henry. He picks her up after a show and she asks how his performance went. He replies, “I killed them. I demolished them.” He returns the question and she says, “I saved them.” Pulverizing and rewarding. Two different perspectives achieving the same feeling in their heads. They love each other so much. They love each other so much they sing it to one another Green Eggs and Ham style in many different places. In true Sparks fashion the repetition causes an interchanging of meaning to the words. It starts as sweet, but funny like it’s a satire of rom coms. Then develops into hilarity as it goes from place to place being so delicate and lovely. Joyful and funny not in a mocking way but the way it feels to hold someones hand you love in a beautiful place and never want to leave. Then goes into sensual, sexual embrace full of passion. Taking you all the way back to your most romantic times in your life. The feat of incredible filmmaking, by Leos Carax the brilliant French director, and songwriting coming together as one. Showing characters develop without doing anything but repeating the same words over and over. Familiar images done differently, some very much so, until we understand more about them and ourselves. One needing to dominate and the other needing to give. Meeting in the middle is what they bring to each other. Baby Annette.
Valley has my nose, and her mom’s everything else. She has a signature look. A look of what I would call judgement if I had seen it on an adult. Fed up with me and her circumstance. A frown that would make Canio from Pagliacci envious. She’s going to get away with so much because of that little face. She would eventually poop, scream, cry, and kick socks off but was so serene early on. It really did a number on me. I met the challenge with open arms and was ready for anything. I find it easier than I expected. Giving myself to a little person that has changed my whole life turns out to be something I am fine at doing. Not near the best or the worst. Something I am used to feeling. I am spending chunks of my day just wondering what she will be like. I ask her everyday what she will love. I have yet to receive an answer. I want to be protect her. But I know she will be hurt, humiliated, ashamed, sad and maybe all in the same moment. That’s life and time. I just don’t want to be like those I see everyday. Using their children to feed their ego. Trying to prove points not found in reality or rational thought. Lost and searching for anything that makes this moment easier and using their child to do so.
Ann gives birth laughing. The joy brought into her life. This special baby. Something is different about her. Glowing and unique. Henry is amazed but still stoic. Maybe realizing something is changing but not sure what yet. Not the obvious things, but something underneath himself. Ann grows more famous and still dying for the masses each evening but never for Henry. He is distant and recedes. Lashing out at his shows. Saying he is punished for telling the truth. They try to save their life together. When land fails you there is always the sea. Trying to drown your pain surrounded by potential drowning death. You can’t save what you don’t honestly value in your decisions. Getting drunk and making the mistake you will live to regret. The kind of mistake the worst drunk men do.
In the weeks that followed I have learned to appreciate this time. I want her to be a little person with thoughts, ideas, feelings, and opinions so much already. I have to be present. I’ve never had a problem doing so until my daughter got here. Being envious of my 40’s and watching her be a small adult feels odd. I try to enjoy everyday and watch her change and grow. Speeding up the process never helps you appreciate anything. Seeing the incremental change is what the real reward is. Once what you thought was the reward gets here you’ll be left with nothing. Remembering the journey to get there. Not losing sight of what is happening because of what my brain may make me perceive to be missing.
Baby Annette has a gift. She has her mother’s voice. An ability to light up a room with her presence. Her father Henry sees this and his astonishment soon turns to selfishness. There is one who isn’t selfish with his desires. One who creates art, builds a foundation on it. He is the Conductor. He is a long admirer of Ann and looks out for Annette. Cultivating an environment of artistic growth and appreciation. He moves with purpose with a wet eye and baton flail towards the musicians. His monologues funny but deeply felt. The tinge of regret on every word. Seeing an ungrateful man in Henry getting what he sees as his life. Two characters with such deep insecurity about different things. Reacting to situations the same way for different reasons. The missed connection of humanity.
Exploitation is a part of making truly great art. Tragedy, loss, heartbreak, joy, love, and triumph all mix in to the relationships that make the best artists do what they do. The use of others to create what they need to create is inevitable. The burden of creating is making ghosts of all of your past loves. The happiest ones get to hold on to those loves and pour one out for the way they got to their current situation. The rest are only settled when exercising those spirits. Continuing to create is to continue a memory of them. Exorcism doesn’t have to be scary. It can just be inviting them out for a chat and a drink. But not too much. Then they go back.
By the time Henry realizes what love he has wasted on himself it is too late. He couldn’t comprehend why someone would love him when he didn’t even love himself. He stared into the abyss and was left hypnotized by his misanthropy. His love wasn’t real. He didn’t give it away. Saving some for yourself sure, but hoarding it and still ending up hating yourself leaves you with nothing. Just the regret of the choices and actions that led you here.
Babies are fragile. They need your care in so many ways. As they grow older they won’t just need you to protect them from sharp corners, steep cliffs, high chairs, and hard surfaces. They will need an ease into the emotional life of a human being. I don’t want to exploit my daughter. I don’t want her used to make me feel better about some faux competition I’m making up in my head. I want her to be great on her terms. No need to be a martyr or come out a hero. She can just be. Greatness or regularity awaits her. She can levitate above the masses or walk away quietly into the night. I embrace all of it. I want her singing, dancing, smiling, and filling up her life with her moments for herself and not for others. I want to give away my love, save just enough for me, and never go too far in one direction. I won’t waltz in the storm. I won’t drunkenly hide from my pain. I will look to the sky for the light and point the way for Valley as she finds her voice. She is fragile, scared, and will need to learn how to get where she wants to go. And I feel so fortunate to be able to hold her hand as we walk into the uncertain idiosyncrasies that await us.
Annette is many things. Musical, melodrama, comedy, high art, absurdist exhibitionism, silly, and all the while providing the fun and undercurrent of sadness that permeates the best entertainment. I find the older I get the more I am not resisting the urge to be general about there are two kinds of viewers to such films. Those who just watch and look for secret meanings and try to find puzzle pieces to fit what they are imagining and those who are overcome with emotion and feeling and are just living in this world. I have done both, but I will always take the latter in film, and in my life.
Annette is on Amazon Prime August 20th.