Anora – REVIEW

Mikey Madison in Anora

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This review is copied right from my Letterboxd, tweaked slightly to fit for the profile. If you want to follow me there, you can click this link.

Getting this right out of the way, I did like Anora. You can see the grade below. If anything, it's a showcase of Mikey Madison and a bunch of fantastic Russian actors I've never heard of before. As you've probably seen before, Madison is probably gonna get a bunch of awards for this that are rightfully deserved, but I also think Yura Borisov should get just as much praise as one of the two bodyguards with the Russian family. He's just as fantastic as Madison. I haven't seen too much of writer/director Sean Baker's work. I've only seen the great The Florida Project, and both Tangerine and Red Rocket have shot up my list because of Anora, and I just loved the look of this movie. I'm not sure how much of the lighting is natural, but a lot of the movie certainly looked like it. He's a fantastic director, and I feel like I've gotta get to more of his stuff ASAP.

Really, the only problem I have with Anora is the writing. At least the writing for Anora, the character. Not going to go into spoilers for something like this, but the whole movie stands on this relationship between Anora and Ivan, the son of a Russian oligarch vacationing in America. Throughout the movie, I was waiting for some sort of information on Anora, anything that fleshes her out as a person more than a sex worker (which, out of what I've read, has been a constant theme in Baker's last few films), but that just didn't happen. Because that didn't happen, I didn't really feel too much between Anora and Ivan, which leads to a disconnect to what the movie's attempting to say, and it just keeps spiraling. Also, there are way too many rape jokes. You'd think that a filmmaker that seemingly cares about sex workers wouldn't stoop that low. Fuck off with that.

Honestly, the good outweighs the bad for Anora. The beginning and ending were a little rough to sit through, but right when the Russians and Armenians show up, it's a bit of fun. I hope Madison and Borisov get some awards love, even some nominations for Baker's direction, but I'll be shocked if this wins any sort of screenplay or best film awards.


Ryan’s Grade: B+