Anora (2024)

[SeanC]

Sean Baker's latest film, the winner of the 2024 Palme d'Or, and poised to be his most commercially successful feature to date by some way, as well as possibly his big awards breakthrough. As someone who has liked Baker's work to varying degrees, but often come away with at least one prominent niggle about a given film (or, in the case of Tangerine, finding it mostly annoying but with an unforgettable ending), I would provisionally cite this as his best work to date. While not flawless (I might agree with the critique offered elsewhere that the middle of the film perhaps goes on a bit too long), it's funny, emotionally affecting when it wants to be, and centered on a great lead performance.

That performance is Mikey Madison (probably heretofore most recognizable to filmgoers for getting a memorably extended demise at the hands of Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as the title character, a Brooklyn exotic dancer who finds herself hired by Ivan, the immature son of a Russian oligarch. Embarking on an extended bacchanal that culminates in a marriage proposal, she soon finds herself in a sticky situation as Ivan's parents react poorly to their son's imprudent match and dispatch a frustrated subordinate and his two minions to help sort the situation out.

The above may sound like the film turns into a thriller, but that is not really the case. For the most part, Anora is set in a decidedly comic register, with Madison's brassy heroine and the henchman trio's antics supplying a fair number of chuckles, both from verbal and physical humour. As with Baker's other films, the details of the setting and of the lives of the characters feel very authentic, even when (as here) the scenario at times feels like a particularly ribald screwball comedy. The ending of the film cracks into a different emotional space, again powered by Madison and an affecting supporting turn by Yura Borisov, who quietly sneaks up on you over the course of the second half of the story. If Baker has always been concerned with America's working poor and strivers, here for the first time he brings the overarching villains of the piece into the picture: the ultra-wealthy, embodied by the Zakharov family.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 11/16/2024 at 5:31 PM, SeanC said:

an affecting supporting turn by Yura Borisov, who quietly sneaks up on you over the course of the second half of the story.

No kidding.  There was a great scene where Ani was talking to someone offscreen.  She and Igor were in the shot, but only a portion of her face, and all of Igor's as he watched the conversation.  Fantastic.

And, that fight in the mansion?  Epic. 

[Browncoat]

This was just so heartbreaking. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

And about the guy who played Igor--I spent the whole movie thinking he looks just like Mike Judge.  Then I looked him up and realized he was in this Finnish movie called Compartment No. 6 that I drove 50 miles on surface streets in Chicago to see.  And on the 50-mile drive back, I was really glad I'd gone.

If you like what he did with his part in Anora, you'll probably enjoy Compartment No. 6, too.