Poor Little Orphan Annie. Her latest screen incarnation has met with the kind of hard knocks that the perennially perky comic-strip cherub has endured with a song and a smile through a 1977 Broadway musical, a 1982 feature film, a couple of rubbish TV movies, a loose Bollywood adaption, a flop stage sequel and even a murderous passing nod in John Waters’s Serial Mom.
Now, however, she may have met her Waterloo in Will Gluck’s 21st-century reboot. First there were the complaints from those stick-in-the-muds who moaned that Annie must be a fair-skinned ginger moppet (one such is introduced and then rudely brushed aside in this film’s opening moments) rather than an African American. Next came the headline-grabbing Sony computer hack, in the wake of which Annie suffered widespread illegal downloading prior to its release, allegedly denting its already perilous box office. Now come the critics, whose early responses have been far from positive, raising the spectre of a traditional Christmas turkey.
So is this new Annie really as unwanted as its titular waif? It certainly has its problems, not least a strangely modern embarrassment about the fact that it’s actually a musical. Moving the story from the Depression era to the recessions of the present day, Gluck’s update is laced with the kind of knowingly self-referential contemporary tics (“Are you singing to me? Is this actually happening?”) that suggest a fatal lack of confidence in the film’s founding genre. Having earned his spurs on films such as Easy A and Friends With Benefits, Gluck has little feel for the magic of spontaneous song, leaving some of the adult cast, notably Rose Byrne, dancing around in a manner best described as apologetic. Considering its brash heritage (Annie has, perhaps unfairly, become a shorthand for an irksome brand of stage-school overconfidence), it’s ironic that this latest incarnation should so often be on the back foot, as if the film-makers are afeard of alienating a too-cool-for-school audience.
In terms of songs, this remixes some of the sturdy Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin numbers of yore with a smattering of new compositions by Sia Furler, Greg Kurstin and Gluck, which struggle somewhat to hold their own against the old favourites. Things start well with a Stomp-inflected rendition of It’s the Hard Knock Life as the kids, now foster-children living in a surprisingly sanitised Harlem, clean their apartment at the harsh instruction of alcoholic Colleen Hannigan, played with gurning overstatement by Cameron Diaz. Snappily cut to a finger-popping chorus of chores (mops, brushes and heels provide percussive accompaniment), this sharp scene-setter bodes well, reminding us of co-producer Jay-Z’s own chart-topping Ghetto Anthem sample and suggesting a hip (hop) reappraisal of Annie’s time-honoured tale.
Other home runs include an imaginative staging of the indefatigable Tomorrow in which Annie’s reflection is caught in the puddles and windows of New York locales; and a spirited rendition of I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here as our heroine arrives at the penthouse apartment of billionaire and wannabe-mayor Will Stacks – Jamie Foxx sharply attempting an unwelcoming latterday Daddy Warbucks. All of these sequences hint at what could have been – a forthright reinvention of a somewhat stagy stalwart that adds a contemporary edge in the manner of The Wiz.
Shame, then, that so much of what surrounds these high points suffers from a bizarre tone-deafness. Diaz is a shrieky cacophony of awfulness, and her scenes with Bobby Cannavale (as Stacks’s scheming PR man) are flat-footed and unfunny, although it’s unfair to blame either performer for what are ultimately directorial missteps. The fact that the narrative (rewritten by The Devil Wears Prada’s Aline Brosh McKenna from a first draft by Emma Thompson) can’t raise its rich/poor themes above the level of mobile phone ownership or its modernity beyond an acknowledgment of viral videos, and social media (an Instagram-led helicopter chase seems terribly old-fashioned) is only part of a more general uncertainty about what Annie means to today’s movie-going audiences. Unsure whether to whisper or scream, the film-makers settle for something uncomfortably in between.
Thank heaven, then, for rising star Quvenzhané Wallis, whose winning presence just about saves the day. Having become the youngest ever recipient of a best actress Oscar nomination for her astonishing debut in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Wallis has already bagged one of Annie’s two Golden Globe nods (the other is for the newly penned Sia song Opportunity) and is far and away the best thing about the movie. Stepping into a role originally earmarked for Willow Smith (whose parents Will and Jada Pinkett Smith are co-producers), Wallis here retains all the unaffected charm that she showcased in Beasts, skipping nimbly between comedy, pathos and show-stopping song and dance, lending credible heart and soul to a production that so often fails to find its feet. While those around her are floundering, this vivaciously talented performer clearly has the measure of both the role and the movie. For her at least, the sun will indeed come out – not just tomorrow, but today.
