It takes somebody of Leos Carax' caliber to make me actually enjoy a musical. For *Annette* he teamed up with art pop duo Sparks, with whose work i'm not very familiar yet but will surely dive into after this. This is kind of a sharp satire on musical theater, poking fun at its tropes, conventions and cliches while also having a sad, shocking and kinda heartfelt, honest story at its core, touching on themes like child star exploitation, celebrity gossip, domestic abuse and clear echoes of #metoo. As funny as it is while taking the piss out of musicals, that doesn't prevent the conclusion from being completely devastating. As a film, it still manages to look and feel like a Leos Carax flick while as a musical, it has everything the genre usually lacks: Wit, self awarenes and most of all: music that doesn't suck.