17/44
Featured reference: Anora (2024)
Narrative
Anora, a young prostitute from Brooklyn, impulsively meets and marries the son of an oligarch. Once word reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as her parents head off to New York to get their marriage annulled. Dangerous and curiously erotic mercy. At the Cannes Film Festival press conference, Mikey Madison said that director Sean Baker would be acting out different sex positions with his wife, producer Samantha Quan, to demonstrate to the actors what he wanted them to do. The hype surrounding Anora is colossal, and I had no idea what to expect, other than to combine all three of Sean Baker’s other films in my head and think that maybe it would be somewhere in the middle of them all. The Florida Project, Red Rocket, and Tangerine – all great films by the way, and all about sex workers).
You have your party, your conflict, and your conclusion
It had a similar tone and focus, but otherwise Anora was a new beast in its own right. I have to say, as far as the meat of the movie goes, it has a LOT more Safdie Brothers than I expected! Lots of people yelling at each other for a long time! Very tense! The movie plays out in three acts, as many great movies do. I had a feeling at first that it was going to be a bit like Boogie Nights in structure, and I’d say it was pretty spot on.
Mikey Madison is fantastic as Anora
Without giving too much away, I’ll say that for me the ending made the entire movie and my girlfriend agreed. You have a 2 hour experience that is mostly funny and mostly gripping, that feels a bit pulpy while offering a lot of very timely details about the experience of sex work, but it all seems like fun until you get to the end. Rather than an ending that wraps things up nicely in a pretty bow, it’s an ending that unties the bow, opens the box, and leaves you with the harsh reality of it all. I was a little in awe of the specific energy of the packed house as the silent credits began to roll and people very slowly (very quietly) began to make their way out of the auditorium. Seeing the ads for the film, I was expecting a bubbly, sweet girl, but she plays a tough, sassy con artist who is VERY New York, which was a pleasant surprise. Anora is a mostly sympathetic character, but not always, and this only adds to her humanity and the overall realism and complexity of her functionality as a main character.
It’s really great to see how well this film is doing
You will experience a rollercoaster of highs and lows with her and the depth will feel very real. She is also extremely HOT and there is SO MUCH SEX in this film. The entire cast is great, but new faces Mark Eidelshtein and Yura Borisov leave the strongest impression as capable actors who deserve much more casting in the future. Eidelshtein stole the show as the most believable, rampaging rich kid ever, and Borisov’s nuanced presence was strong without needing many words. I definitely think this is one of Baker’s two best films yet, maybe his best, and one of the best films of 2024. The theater was completely packed on a Monday night at 9:30 p.m., and I hear the opening weekend numbers were some of the highest this year.
I’m excited to see Mikey Madison’s career blossom after this, and I can’t wait to see more from Sean Baker
This is the kind of original, heartfelt, relevant cinema that needs to be seen, celebrated, and championed, and it’s a joy to see it happen. Check out our list of exciting new films from this year’s film festivals, including Venice, TIFF, the New York Film Festival, and more.