Anora

We skipped football last night and instead settled in to watch one of 2024’s most acclaimed films, Anora (part of our quest to see all the Oscar nominees prior to the ceremony). Anora is Sean Baker’s story of a seemingly savvy sex worker, Ani - as she prefers to be called, and her whirlwind relationship with Vanya, a client who turns out to be the son of wealthy Russian oligarchs. And while the film has certainly been lauded with prizes - including the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes and victories from the Directors Guild and the Producers Guild this past weekend - I don’t think I can, in good faith, recommend it. Anora feels like three movies: the first is a bouncy romcom, complete with a meet-cute in the strip club between Ani and Vanya. This section is fast-paced, cheery, whimsical even, as Ani gets swept away by Vanya’s goofy charms. The final act, in which Ani finds herself alone with Igor the henchman, is a warm, slow burn of human connection (a movie with those two characters as the central figures would absolutely smolder). But the middle third, meant to be madcap and zany and slapstick, is a ponderous, noisy, violent, and exhausting extended sequence in which Ani is held hostage by her inept captors. Well directed? Well, yes, I guess so - the director’s hand is heavy and there are lots of directorial touches: long takes, moving cameras, fixed cameras, super close-ups, and lovely, composed frames (often involving sex and nude women) all delivered beneath a mood-making grainy overlay. The direction needs an edit. Great performances? Sure - Mikey Madison delivers comedy, drama, confidence, and vulnerability as Anora, and Mark Eydelshteyn, as Vanya, is light-hearted, googly-eyed, and charming - until he succumbs to snivelling privilege. But the most grounded and realistic performance is delivered by Oscar nominee Yuri Borisov as the hitman-with-a-heart-of-gold, Igor. In a movie that’s often overrun with noise, Borisov plays his persuasiveness patiently and quietly, the calm eye of a tumultuous journey. The film purports to be a comedy, but the humor gets crushed by the aforementioned heavy hand of the director. Ultimately, though the movie wants to humanize Ani and her plight as a sex worker, that humanization is lost to the strident male gaze of the camera. Anora turns out to be another version of a brotastic idyll with the rich, white patriarchy getting off scot-free while the woman returns to her only virtue: a sexualized body. Anora is nominated for six Oscars - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing - so my opinion might be an anomaly.