Anora (Sean Baker, October 18, 2024) Movie • Page 7

The reason the mother reacts so cruelly to the threat of a long divorce proceeding is less about the money and more about the headlines and publicity. That is what the family fears more than anything; that is why they object to the marriage in the first place. Anora could say anything from Ivan's desire for certain types of sexual acts to drug use to straight-up making stuff up that someone in that position would know. 10,000 dollars in 2024 New York City is worth almost nothing. The family would insist on an NDA and the money would be much higher.

 

A lot of the big awards posters are highlighting Igor, which gives away how important his role in the film is. Seeing him emerge from just Thug No. 3 to the co-lead of the ending is one of the best parts of the film.

 

Baker's last three films have shown people on the margins, barely getting by and never feeling financially secure. We are never desperate for more stories about how the rich are bad people, but what is so engaging here is the smaller instances of cruelty that happen so quickly and forgotten because those rich people don't even think about it. Lifting your legs while your housekeeper cleans around you while you play video games, the curt and rude way they deal with the person processing the annulment, the expectation that you can just go into someone's work and interrupt everything to look for an adult who is trying to avoid you. They are like Greek Gods, toying with their subjects for their own amusement. Anora is not a particularly deep thinker (she wants her honeymoon to be at Disney World), but you would hope someone from a working-class background would be a little bit more appreciative and caring toward the people who are now beneath her. Ultimately, though, along with the friends at the candy shop who also leech onto Ivan, we see how quickly people can flip that switch and become the monsters they would have despised if they had to wait on them or serve them.

 

This was great, the intensity ramped up to Safdie Bros level at times. The only other people in my theater left about 30 minutes in lol.

 

Caught this last night and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since

 

Liked this a lot. Just gonna repeat what other people have said - Mikey Madison and the guy playing Igor are great. Didn’t expect Igor to become a big role in this, but it makes the movie all the better. The movie plays to all of Baker’s strengths.

Not to be all Cinemasins, but I also agree that the whole search for Ivan could have been cut down in some way. I understand the intent, but it kind of felt like “Yeah, we get it.” And just speaking as an old man, the use of “fuck” literally every other word during that stretch felt like almost semantic saturation and maybe that’s what made it feel longer for me.

Had a huge laugh with “No!” and that ending was a gut punch, as pretty much any Baker movie is.

 

1. The Florida Project
2. Tangerine
3. Red Rocket
4. Anora

I really like Anora, so it isn't an insult at all. Baker is on a really great run and I need to go back and see his earlier work.

 

The daughter of the drug dealer in Red Rocket was the house mom at the strip club in Anora. He discovered her hanging out at the doughnut shop that was used in Red Rocket. So many of the secondary actors in his films are found that way. It is really incredible how well he does at finding these people to fill out the roles and add realism.

 

1. The Florida Project
2. Anora
3. Tangerine
4. Red Rocket
5. Starlet

I love all of them but the top two are on another level.

 

I am surprised the budget for this was only 6 million dollars, which is still more than his last three films combined. Las Vegas and New York aren't cheap.

 

Loved watching this movie last night (glad I made it to the theater just before it went out), and feeling the heartbreak of Ani’s journey all the more acutely this morning. Just a gorgeous tragedy of a film.

 

The Florida Project
Anora
Red Rocket
Tangerine

 

Anora




That is my ranking cause it's the only one of his I've seen

 

thought this was great

 

I loved this.

I went in pretty blind, so to say that the heavy emphasis on screwball comedy, especially on the slapstick elements, really surprised me would be a major understatement. The entire goons in the house segment had my entire theater rolling; there were so many amazing line deliveries within that.

All the praise and accolades for Madison are appropriate. She brings a depth to Annie that could easily have veered into parody or insensitivity without the right touch. It's also a credit to Baker's experience with writing and directing these types of characters that you're feeling genuine, deep emotional stakes and weight at any given moment.

If you're going to have an artistic trademark, knowing how to end a movie is a pretty powerful one to have. This really leaves you re-evaluating every second that comes before it and ends up settling as a movie that stays with you long past the windshield wipers going silent. The battle between genuine empathy and a total resistance to true intimacy.

Even 24 hours after seeing, there's just something about Ivan calling Annie an "idiot" outside the plane that is so quietly brutal. The player gets played. The rich toss away the poor. The love is just transactional lust. The tonal sleight of hand of the previous hour makes that eventual rug pull so much more devastating. We're seeing all of it from the same perspective Annie is and we're just as blindsided.

I do think the "searching" sequence could probably have been trimmed for pacing purposes, but it's a pretty minor complaint in the grand scheme. Looking forward to revisiting this.

 

my thing about the searching sequence was like obviously that’s where they were gonna find him lol why didn’t they check there sooner

 

Cause he wasn’t there until he was

 

I kinda thought maybe she was intentionally leading them around because she knew he’d be there, but then she was shocked that he was there and I was also confused why they didn’t start there.

Or at the very least, shave 10 minutes of searching off hehe

 

Just saw this again and I think it’s pretty firmly rooted now as my favorite of the year. Mikey Madison runs away with this and while I have no confident clue what other nominees there will be, I’ll be cheesing so hard if she wins best lead.

 

Also it was really fun watching Igor on the second watch. Right from the jump, he is kind and sensitive and really cares for Ani and it’s neat watching their relationship unfold when you aren’t unsure of what his intentions are or if he is truly in fact a scumbag.

So many more moments really made me laugh too. The moment when Toros gets the text and pic of the wedding license and groans “Nooo” while still holding the baby is so good

 

Is he really so great, though? He is a mob enforcer who uses violence. He is nice to Anora but he's also a heterosexual man who sees a woman who is being financially and emotionally destroyed. Is he as caring if she doesn't look like she does?

 

The journey is the movie! You really got to feel all of the conflicting emotions of these characters in this bizarre set of circumstances. They retrace the areas they fake fell in love in this new light of betrayal and after almost catching him they circle back to where they first met!

It’s the illusion of the first half being a love story being completely punctured by the hard realities of working and needing to stay alive. They took the fantasy and ripped it inside out. Anora lives this journey twice, as her fake husbands fantasy of love, and as the poor character’s labor to prop up the facade. They’re all just pawns to serve this narrative, but when he bails it highlights the whole thing as purely transactional. That section is the full circle of the whole film.

I get it was a little long but you’d be cutting off the juiciest meat if they just waited for him at the strip club.

 

Yeah that is true. Definitely not perfect but within the context of the movie and the characters we spend time with, he is certainly motivated by more benevolent things. I like to think he would’ve done the same things if Ani looked differently but I get it.

 

Hits digital on 12/17.