Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com! Time for another 2024 nominee (only three more to go)!
Over the weekend I caught the unusual new comedy-drama Anora, written and directed by Sean Baker, about a high-priced stripper/escort who falls in love and elopes with the son of a Russian oligarch, only for things to go awry when the boy's domineering parents find out about the marriage. That's about all the plot summary I can divulge without spoiling anything.
Mikey Madison gives a tour de force as the title character (who prefers to be called Ani), a stalwart, streetwise Russian-American living in Brooklyn. Her work routine consists of flirting with her club's clientele and soliciting expensive private dances, occasionally offering more intimate services if the price is right. Ani is presented not as a shame-filled woman desperate to improve her station, but as a confident sex worker fully in control of her craft, as it were. She clearly enjoys what she does and mostly has loving relationships with her coworkers (one catty rival excepted). But when she meets Ivan, a gentle and impressionable 21-year-old with seemingly unlimited cash, she jumps at the chance to make some serious bank while letting the kid fall for her, ultimately falling for him too. The film initially feels like a modern Cinderella story of sorts, which is what I expected going into it. But after the first act it takes a very (pleasantly) surprising turn.
Once the story involves the parents' "henchmen," for lack of a better word, the film shifts to a power struggle, where Ani's resolve is put to the ultimate test. There's a 25-minute scene involving a home invasion that is masterful in its pacing and relentless intensity, and even more unexpectedly, its sense of humor. Between Ani's prodigiously creative swearing and the absurdity of the situation, this sequence is a unique take on the "girl gets bullied by thugs" trope. For one thing, the goons in question are absolute nimrods and Ani spots their incompetence immediately. One of them though, the lowest-ranking of course, begins to see Ani for the iron-willed firebrand that she is. The second and third acts take place over a couple of days and the central conflict resolves in unforeseen but very satisfying and poignant ways.
The film makes extensive use of wide-angle lenses to give the visuals scope, paying homage to films like The French Connection and Quentin Tarantino's catalog (in particular Pulp Fiction as far as some of the scene blocking in concerned). The strip club scenes make use of vibrant primary colors (perhaps a visual nod to Eyes Wide Shut, another richly colorful film about garish wealth and the hedonistic services it affords), while the stark, wintry streets of New York are shown in cold, muted tones. This NYC resembles its decadent, decaying 1970s counterpart.
At the center of everything of course is Mikey Madison, whose memorably unhinged performance in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood helped land her this role (apparently without having to audition). She is onscreen nearly the entire running time and really carries the story, somehow controlling almost every scene despite her character often being at the mercy of others. Ani masks whatever pain she's feeling with swear-laden aggression and clever grit. This is a career-defining performance from a profoundly compelling young actor, and I'll be really interested to see what projects she tackles going forward.
Anora is a powderkeg of a movie, filled with intense situations and a surprising number of laughs. At its core is an Oscar-worthy lead performance that stomps all over the stereotypes we associate with sex workers and the idea that they yearn to be rescued. Ani's "prince" is not at all who she, or we, expected.
I give the film **** out of ****.
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