Anora

ANORA (18)

D: Sean Baker

Neon / FilmNation / Cre (Alex Coco, Samantha Quan & Sean Baker)

US 🇺🇸 2024

139 mins

Drama/Comedy

W: Sean Baker

DP: Drew Daniels

Ed: Sean Baker

Mikey Madison (Anora ‘Ani’ Mikheeva), Mark Eydelshteyn (Ivan ‘Vanya’ Zakharov), Yura Borisov (Igor), Karren Karagulian (Toros), Vache Tovmasyan (Garnik), Aleksei Serebryakov (Nikolai Zakharov), Darya Ekamasova (Galina Zakharov)

Mikey Madison truly shines as Anora ‘Ani’ Mikheeva, an exotic dancer and sex worker from Brooklyn whose life turns upside down when she becomes a client of ‘Vanya’, the son of a Russian billionaire, resulting in a whirlwind romance and a green card marriage, reminiscent of a scenario akin to 1990’s Pretty Woman, though it should be noted that the Julia Roberts-Richard Gere romantic comedy did not originally have a fairytale ending.

Once Vanya’s parents catch wind of their son’s marriage to a ‘prostitute’, they send their goon underlings to seize the couple to get the marriage annulled, though it doesn’t go to plan when Vanya flys the coop, leaving Ani alone with them as they patrol the streets of Brooklyn and the shores of Coney Island looking for the runaway, with the film serving not only as a slightly quirky black comedy, but also a metaphor for the hierarchy of wealth & the power structure that comes with it.

Sean Baker has previously made many films where the main character is flawed & imperfect, occasionally unsympathetic, and though Ani is initially shown to be quite street smart and headstrong, she also has naïveté & vulnerability that makes it easy to sympathise with her plight.

The Oscars decided that this was the Best Picture of 2024 & I’m very much inclined to agree. Mikey Madison is excellent in the lead, but it has to be said that the entire cast of little known actors are all perfect here, as it genuinely feels as though you’re following real people around, rather than performers playing a character.

If you’re new to Sean Baker’s filmography, this is a very good place to start, but I don’t think he’s yet to make a poor movie since his breakthrough with 2015’s ‘Tangerine’ (qv).

8/10