Yes, it’s a naff title. America may be or may not be great, may once have been great, mat have always been great, never great and cinema, if it is great, may have great before Anora and Anora is a great film, in my opinion, and it’s all opinion, perspective, and someone remarked that millions died to make Caesar great, same for Alexander the Great, and does great exist outside opinion, perspective? Anora on a deeper level, stripped of all its perfect scenes, its crazy shenanigans, its hilarious extravaganzas is about a quest for intimacy. The word ‘stripped’ is appropriate because the film is about a stripper—correct term sex worker (or exotic dancer)—embarking on a Cinderella-like fairytale ;oolong for a prince. The ‘prince’ or fairy godmother comes in the form of an extremely rich Russian oligarch’s 21 year old son, Ivan, who takes such a shine to Anora in her working clothes that he buys her for a week and they jet off to Vegas with his gang for wild boozing, drugs and of course furious jumping. The latter term coined from the 2023 films Poor Things The beautiful jewel gown in Anora is a wedding dress, complete with 4-carat wedding wing – or is it engagement ring? To misquote Lady Bracknell, spontaneous marriage is the way to go as it saves the price of the engagement ring, not that Ivan, the young man enamoured, is the slightest bit concerned about saving, for he lives a feckless life of vast expense, massive luxury, in an enormous glass cathedral-like mansion in Brighton Beach, New York.
Trouble is midnight comes, return to Brighton Bridge happens, and Ivan is unclothed as possessing nothing, for his dad owns all. And when dad hears about son’s carry-on, he and his formidable wife order their local henchmen to annul things, as the couple set out in their private aeroplane to retrieve their son. From Russian without Love. Sean Baker, the film’s director makes films about people on the margins, on the periphery, in the grotty gritty grease pole of life, and he’s brilliant at casting new and first time actors to play characters that are fully realised, vibrant, empathetic, often crazy, usually on the periphery, and the result is everything and everyone in Anora pops, including cinematography, sound, editing…
Played out in conflicted and chaotic scenes is the struggle of the have-nots and the incongruent situations they face in order to survive. It’s a timely film, for all the margins will soon be extinct for Donald Trump will make America great which surely means rich. Sean Baker along with Mikey Madison who plays the titular Anora, expended a lot of effort connecting with sex workers to get an authentic feel for what happens in that world and the result is authentic cinema magic. It’s a wild ride, sensitive, entertaining, hilarious, crazy, moving, devastating, fronted by a brilliant central performance by Mikey Madison who is pure cinema dynamite.
Anora, in my opinion, is dazzling. It’s difficult to describe what defines a great movie. One just feels it, perhaps feels the love, care, the film makers have for the community the film presents and beyond that, for its audience, transmitted through the screen to produce a kind of rare intimacy..
On a deeper level Anora is a variant of Honora, derived from the Roman word meaning ‘honor,’ ‘esteem,’ or ‘dignity.’ Also in English, ‘light .and the film is about the denial of one’s light, seeking it outside of self. An instant classic.
But will Donald Trump like it?
