Anora

Rating – 4/4

**SPOILERS**

2024 has been a slow, slow year for cinema. 

Having seen a little over 30 movies from this year, I haven’t felt absolutely blown away by as many as I feel I should’ve by now. Granted, by this point last year I had already been spoiled by the likes of Past Lives, Across The Spider Verse, Barbie, and The Holdovers (to name a few), so 2024 had a pretty impressive year to follow up. Still, I hoped I would find a few more high points by the end of November. 

Thankfully, Anora has finally provided me with a clear one. The most recent winner of the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is the newest film directed by Sean Baker, following a young escort who winds up in a whirlwind romance and sudden marriage to the son of a very wealthy Russian oligarch, offering her a life of wealth and extravagance. However, when news of the wedding reaches Russia, the parents of the groom come to annul the marriage, threatening Anora’s new life. The ensuing escapades make for a surprisingly hilarious, well acted, and emotionally affecting story that, in my humble opinion, makes for the closest the year has gotten to a perfect movie. 

Anora’s cast is populated by actors who I was not familiar with beforehand, but it’s proven that Mikey Madison is an actor to pay attention to (and expect some Oscar buzz for next Spring). She’s probably most recognizable from her work in Scream (2022), and in Quentin Tarentino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (although it’s harder to recognize her when she’s not on fire). Here, she lends an incredible performance to the titular character, combining a fiery and brash nature, the most intense Brooklyn accent possible, and considerable determination to make and maintain a better life for herself. This makes for a prickly, abrasive exterior that is never able to make Anora less endearing, or fully obscure the venerability hiding beneath the surface. Madison is able to maintain this balancing act perfectly. The toughness never falters, but there’s just enough cracks for something deeper to shine through if you pay attention. It’s clear Anora desperately wants this better life for herself, and yet the fear of losing it manifests into an aggressive, confrontational state rather than something more blatantly vulnerable. It might be the finest performance of the year. 

I found Anora’s storyline to be unique in that it feels as though the genre slightly switches from act to act, or rather morphs into something different. The first act feels almost like a fantasy, fittingly as Anora is taken into her dream come true when she meets Ivan at work. Ivan starts to pay for her services more often, eventually taking a liking to her and signs her on as his live-in girlfriend for a week. From here, Anora lives in Ivan’s gorgeous mansion, engages in massive parties, and joins Ivan and his friends on random trips to Vegas. The first act is characterized by excess and a total lack of responsibility. Watching a group of careless 20 year olds party and do whatever they want feels a little like watching a Logan Paul video at times, but that’s the point of it. The flamboyant lifestyle is a complete 180 from Anora’s low paying job and messy apartment, so when Ivan impulsively proposes to Anora one night (and manages to convince her that he IS being genuine), elopement makes perfect sense. 

Every character in Anora is played to perfection, as the actors use body language exceedingly well to establish who the characters are as people. Mark Eydelshteyn is no exception, as he plays Ivan with a hyperactive level of energy and movement (and an obnoxious laugh) that tells you everything you need to know without it being said. Ivan is clearly a deeply immature person, the quintessential rich kid who’s gotten everything in life. The nature of Ivan and Anora’s relationship isn’t exactly clear. Ivan says he loves her, but is also a brat. Anora is clearly maintaining her work persona around him, leaving her real feelings more ambiguous. I feel it’s easy to say that Anora wants Ivan for his lifestyle, but a final shot (that despite the warning at the beginning I am NOT going to spoil), could upend that theory depending on interpretation. I really hope other people I know watch this movie, because I really want to discuss the nature of this relationship. 

The second act moves away from Anora’s fairy tale, Logan Paul-esque adventures with the news that Ivan's parents are coming to annul the wedding. From here, the film turns into a screwball dramady in which Anora and a trio of goons working for the parents have to track Ivan down when he flees. The movie gets absolutely hilarious here, between the perpetually unlucky Russian henchmen who are clearly tired of dealing with Ivan’s antics, and Anora’s very aggressive interactions with them. The dynamics between the henchmen are those of three guys who don’t fully know what they’re supposed to be doing and don’t want to be doing it. They aren’t tough, overly competent brutes. They’re just some guys who are stuck with a bratty rich kid and a very angry escort. Another aspect of the film that I love is how natural it all feels. Characters talk over each other and speak in a very normal way, leaving any exposition to feel decidedly uncinematic. Things repeatedly go wrong, people keep complaining, no one wants to be there, and we GET it. No matter how much you’re rooting for Anora, it’s hard to hate these guys. It’s an absurd situation told with so much realism that it only gets funnier. 

Anora’s third act, in which Ivan’s parents are introduced, transitions into a drama. Anora has to face her place in the world and whether or not she can escape it. Ivan’s parents are another pair of smaller, but great performances. What I think is interesting is that Ivan’s mother is the domineering one in the family, while his father is much more quiet and almost meek. The mother is who pushes the hardest for the annulment, and has the most contempt for Anora and her status. I expected the father to be the one to do so, bringing up topics of masculinity, and male treatment of women while in positions of power. Putting the mother in this position however removes these notions. This conflict all comes down to class and lifestyle, and asks if Anora has a place with people who will stop at nothing to keep her out, and if she should want that. 

I won’t describe the ending any further. The film leaves space to let people draw their own conclusions, and I don’t want to take that away. I can’t recommend Anora enough. Funny, painful, and intelligent all at once, it’s easily my favorite movie of the year so far. That being said, I hope it gets some challengers in the final month. 
Please 2024. More good movies. That’s all I ask (-Will Cribb, a man who paid to see Venom 3 last week and was surprised to be disappointed).