“Why are you a comedian?” asks a rapturous audience when Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) takes the stage wearing just a boxer’s hooded robe and...
“Why are you a comedian?” asks a rapturous audience when Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) takes the stage wearing just a boxer’s hooded robe and a pair of spandex shorts underneath. His deadpan face, brute masculinity on show and choice of words reveal his rage and self-loathing. What is he angry about? Is it the uproarious praise that his partner, the talented soprano Anne Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard), gets every time she is on stage?
Does he resent her classical delicateness and how the world reveres it and loves it? We’re never sure till the end of this deliciously absurd musical by French director Leos Carax.
Henry is unapologetic being a misanthrope. He muses about death, cruelty and fame and derides the very audience he speaks to. Like how most nasty narratives of celebrities ripen and get looped in public memory and social media, the audience laps up his existential venom and wants more.
He gives more and more. His answer to the question of why a comedian: “To disarm people…it’s the only way I know to tell the truth without getting killed.” Who then is going to die? Perhaps the clue is there early on:
Anne: How did the show go?
Henry: I killed them, destroyed them, murdered...
