Annie *** (2014, Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhané Wallis, Cameron Diaz, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale) – Movie Review

At the age of nine, Quvenzhané Wallis became the youngest Oscar nominee for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Now a veteran of 11, the Louisiana little lady gets her reward in the star title role of co-writer/director Will Gluck’s 2014 update of the much-loved Broadway musical Annie.

There are already two movie version of the show – John Huston’s original big-screen version Annie (1982) with Albert Finney and Rob Marshall’s well-regarded, more faithful adaptation in 1999. But this time it’s produced by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith originally as a star vehicle for their daughter Willow Smith, who had to drop out because she was too old, and Jay-Z.

They planned it as ‘a modern re-imagining of a beloved musical’. So they’ve put a slight new spin on it, by turning it more into a sentimental emotional drama, slightly hiding the whole idea that’s it’s still a musical, as if they are somehow slightly ashamed of it, or at least don’t want to put off customers who don’t prefer musicals. That’s certainly helpful for the trailer.

Wallis tells us: ‘The new film uses cell phones and there’s pop music. And it’s not about an orphan, it’s a foster kid.’ There are other changes. There’s no huge orphanage with comedy villains, just a little foster home, presided over by Cameron Diaz’s not-so-evil-after-all foster mom Miss Hannigan. There’s no bald old Daddy Warbucks either, but instead Jamie Foxx‘s attractive, hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks, who has a scheming campaign advisor in Bobby Cannavale’s Guy and a lovely and loving VP in Rose Byrne’s Grace. Instead of being stagey, there’s a lot of exterior New York filming to open it out and prevent the claustrophobic musicals feel.

So, then much has changed, but, have no fear, Annie may only ever have been a two-hit wonder, but those hits are here: Tomorrow and It’s The Hard-Knock Life. They’re the ultimate, hummable show tunes. I’m still singing them days afterwards. Apparently, I can’t get them out of my head. They’re not staged with any great zip or brio, there’s no big song and dance production number for Hard-Knock Life, but they’re sung well and they’re here.

The less good, but serviceable songs Maybe, I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here, You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile, Something Was Missing, Little Girls, I Don’t Need Anything But You and Easy Street are also still here, in tweaked 2014 film versions. Just as well they are, because Tomorrow and It’s The Hard-Knock Life are over and done in the first half hour and it’s a two-hour movie, maybe a little over long, though it doesn’t get too draggy.

In the sweet, antique-seeming story, Stacks takes Annie in into his super-swanky home as a campaign move, and soon comes to believe he’s her guardian angel, but it’s Annie who’s going to turn his life around. It’s a Depression era tale updated to the Recession era. As not enough has changed in  80 years, the story still works in 2014.

The performances are fine, quite good really, with Foxx pretty much ideal, though his dancing’s a bit stiff, and Wallis belting out the old songs and R&B-influenced new ones effectively and conveying eternal optimism and embodying cheery positive values just right. Byrne is a pleasant presence and a sweet romantic foil for Foxx and Cannavale a solid corporate villain.

Of the principals, only Diaz is off key, game for it but way OTT in yet another waste of her time. When are they going to give her the classy roles she needs? When she’s 80? Sandra Bullock turned down the role of Miss Hannigan, having said she hates musicals and vows to never star in one. She was right about the role though, it’s ideal for a super-talented star character actress with well-honed comedic skills, just like Carol Burnett in 1982 and Kathy Bates in 1999.

It would be easy to dislike Annie, but it’s a whole lot easier to like it.

[Spoiler alert] It briefly turns out that Stacks is actually bald like Daddy Warbucks, but supposedly wearing a wig to hide it.

Annie opened at the Alvin Theatre in April 1977, played for 2,377 performances and won the 1977 Tony Award for Best Musical and the 1977 Tony for Best Book of a Musical. Andrea McArdle, the first little girl to play Annie on Broadway in the original stage production of 1977, has the cameo role of Star-To-Be in the 1999 film.

In March 2018 Diaz said: ‘I am actually retired.’ By then Diaz’s last on-screen appearance was in 2014’s Annie.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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