Anora

I've been seeing so many damn trailers for Anora over the past several months and none have particularly impressed me. I'm not familiar with director Sean Baker's work, the trailers feature a lot of semi-annoying people yelling at one another, and it felt potentially trashy. 

However, absolutely glowing reviews and a win at Cannes changed my tune on whether or not I wanted to see it (I was fully planning on skipping it). Despite the "must see" and "best of the year" reviews, I felt like my expectations remained tempered given how much the trailers had wore on me in months prior. I was intrigued to see if I'd be surprised, but also expecting something in line with my opinion of the trailers. 

I'm surprised with the level of praise Anora is getting. I enjoyed it, and it surpassed my expectations, but "best of the year" and potential Oscar front runner are not sentiments I share in the slightest. 

Much to my delight, Anora is a funny film. Much funnier than the largely unfunny trailers, and most of the annoying-people-yelling sequences can be humorous, or even feature some laugh-out-loud moments. I'm not viewing it as a top comedy or anything either, but the second half is more humor-focused than I'd anticipated. There's also a beating heart here in Mikey Madison's titular character, Anora. If there's one area that lives up to the hype, it's her performance. She's a mostly lovable protagonist whose journey of growth - including a powerful final scene - is what makes the whole film worth it. Madison disappears into the character, and it's a role that demands a lot from her. Other performances are largely great, even if some of them grate on you, but they pale in comparison to Madison's. 

Anora is a story about a stripper who falls in love with a young Russian male, infatuated by his mystery and wealth. It's a nearly 2.5 hour film that is too long for the story it wants to tell and feels greater than its length. That's largely because it has a bloated second half that diminishes a lot of the good will established in the beginning. There's legitimately an entire hour+ dedicated to finding a specific character in no way other than hopping around places in New York with a picture of them. While some of these portions may be the film's funniest, it's also where it lags the most and there's not enough story left to sustain an entire half of a movie. 

The film can also be trashy at times - bordering on exploitive - which I think is by design, but didn't help me like any of these characters much more (or think they were deeply intricate). Some of this is rectified by the ending, but while I enjoyed the final take, it's not enough to fully save the other decisions that were made. 

If this feels like a takedown piece, it shouldn't because Anora is enjoyable overall. Its core performance is one of the year's best, it can be fun (and funny) at times, and the character arc of our main character is satisfying. However, I'm a bit baffled at the talk of it making a splash at the Oscars, outside of Madison's performance, because while good, it's not making my Top 10 this year. 

Rapid Rath's Review Score | 8/10