Anora (2024) Bittersweet Oscar nominated heartbreaker
“I don’t like this. I’m not being paid enough for this”
Any film that opens with “Greatest Day” by Take That and a plethora of beautiful naked ladies dancing obviously gets my immediate attention, but can you hold me in your arms tonight? Well can you?
Here are the opening 12 minutes of a remarkable film:
With a rolling camera, Sean Baker commences his eighth film from the director’s chair moving along a line of lap dancing young ladies before settling, in perfect timing with both the opening music of Take That and the film’s opening credits, on “Anora” (Mikey Madison) or more commonly and simply known as “Ani”. From this quite beautiful beginning we cut to Ani walking the floor of a busy nightclub come adult lap dancing club seeking her next male client and quickly a rotation of largely older men are entertained and moved on from, with one asking “Does your family know you do this?” through to Ani’s cheerful retort of “Does your family know you’re here?”. A picture is quickly painted of Ani’s working life and that of a dancer come stripper in either a row of fellow young ladies (as we see the twinkling lights of Brooklyn, New York outside and in the near distance) or inside a “Private Room” in the upstairs of the club. When not dancing, Ani is seen as the smiling centre of attention amid the popping of champagne corks all around her before quick cuts once more reinforce her working night of dancing for one lucky man after the other and after catching the eye of her best friend at the club “Lulu” (Luna Sofía Miranda) we now see them together on the street outside of the club sharing both a joint and tall tales from their evening so far with Ani describing one of her clients as an “Indian Jeffrey Dahmer” as the two young ladies fall into hysterics.
Cutting back inside the club we immediately find Ani back in her nightly routine dancing once more and even persuading a possible client to accompany her to an ATM but this is quickly cut away from and back to Ani now back stage, telling tall tales once more, and on a break, but club manager “Jimmy” (Vincent Radwinsky) breaks her spell of rest and relaxation and as a Russian speaker, she’s required to entertain a “kid”. After at first refusing, we now see Ani full of life and smiles once more being introduced to “Vanya” (Mark Eydelshteyn) a somewhat man child and although Ani confesses “I don’t speak Russian but I understand Russian”, Vanya is immediately smitten with the beautiful young lady soon dancing in his lap. From the public setting of the club Ani soon escorts Vanya through the heavily red tinged corridors of the upstairs of the club to a “VIP Room” and after instructions for him to place his hands underneath his thighs, Ani provides a reverse lap dance to the young man’s utter delight as he announces “God Bless America”. As he does so, Ani is seen in close-up, distant and disinterested, blowing a large bubblegum bubble for just another man and just another dance.
The beginning of the film is redolent in quick cuts that move the film along at a lightning pace and here as we approach the conclusion of the opening twelve minutes is no different: From the laughter and alcoholic shots shared back in the club we now see Ani typing her name and number into Vanya’s mobile phone before an exhausted Ani is quickly walking to and then from a train ride home, an almost immediate rude awakening from her morning’s sleep to a barely awake early morning cigarette outside as a train roars past nearby and a message on her phone, a taxi, a mansion, the home of Vanya, and a private hour away from the glare of the nightclub.
When I first watched Anora a couple of weeks ago I had two major gripes for a wonderful film I otherwise adored. Firstly, I believed the second half of the film (after a near perfect first 40 minutes) was a little too baggy and repetitive and stretching the story unnecessarily. On my second viewing last evening it’s clear I was wrong and it doesn’t but my second issue still stands and that is the film is just two or three minutes too long and those extra minutes just broke my damn heart. I understand the reasoning for the ending and the relevance of the extra minutes but my goodness it ripped my heart to shreds which I guess is the first of many compliments flying in the pun intended direction of the film’s writer, editor, producer and of course director, Sean Baker. Nominated for six Oscars at next month’s Academy Awards (including four in the prestigious categories of Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor) Anora is clearly a runaway success with five Golden Globe and seven BAFTA nominations too and I’d wish all concerned the very best of luck if only they weren’t vying with my favourite film of the last year in every single category, The Substance. Except one. With Sean Baker (Best Film/Best Director) and Mikey Madison (Best Actress) both hoping to best Coralie Fargeat’s incredible The Substance, Yura Borisov stands somewhat alone in the Best Supporting Actor category and whilst I’m not going to appraise or indeed praise his performance here in Anora other than to say it’s magnificent, his Oscar nominated performance does shine yet more praise both on his director and the film as a whole as Borisov’s performance perfectly sums up the film and its constituent parts. For there are no periphery characters, be it Ani’s friend Lulu or bitter adversary at the dancing club “Diamond” (Lindsey Normington). Each and every character is fleshed out before us whether it’s the obnoxious man child that is Vanya or the hapless trio of Coen Brothers inspired Russian henchmen in the pay of Vanya’s parents headed by a superb performance from Karren Karagulian as “Toros” or his feckless brother “Garnik” brought to life in hilarious fashion by Vache Tovmasyan. But then there’s “Igor” and the aforementioned Oscar nominated performance from Yura Borisov. All relaxed poise and control and whilst baffled by the circumstances surrounding his 30th birthday, a background performance brilliantly captured by the director of his actor’s eyes and mannerisms, the things unsaid, the care and attention and perhaps most of all, his humanity. All this and more shines from the screen and I hope he lands an Oscar in a month’s time. As I do Mikey Madison, but if only she wasn’t up against Demi Moore in my favourite movie of last year!
Anora exceeded my expectations first time around and second time, I loved it just that little bit more.
Highly recommended.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absence of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - Link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - Link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - Link to Amazon