Why Is Annette a Puppet? How Did Ann Die? What We Know About ‘Annette’

Stand-up comedian Henry McHenry and his wife, world-famous opera singer Ann Desfranoux, welcomed their puppet baby, Annette, at the height of their careers. After Ann’s death, a washed-up Henry is forced to raise their daughter alone, and he soon discovers that she has inherited her mother’s talent. But it gets weirder.

Henry exhibits his destructive tendencies early on, which only heighten as his daughter rises to fame. As the film comes to a close, Annette visits her father — who has finally been persecuted for his crimes — in prison, and it becomes abundantly clear that Annette isn’t a puppet at all. We now see that Annette is a living, breathing child that Henry has been manipulating for his own benefit.

Before exiting the frame, Annette sheds her wooden exterior, which sheds light on how her father treats the people in his life — like inanimate objects. In an interview with the Washington Post, CGI aesthetic designer Estelle Charlier opened up about how much hard work it took to make viewers empathetic to what looked like a pretty creepy puppet.

“Since she was intended to live among human actors, the puppet had to be able to blend in with them,” Estelle explained, “Yet, too much realism might have given rise to that uneasy feeling described in theories of robotics as the ‘valley of the uncanny,’ when too perfect an imitation of the human ends up creating a somewhat repulsive reaction. Annette, on the other hand, had to be instantly endearing.”

We can’t help but believe that Annette may have actually had a shot at life as a real girl if her mother didn’t face such a tragic end. But how did Henry’s wife, Ann, die anyway?