January 23, 2025
Anora "Ani"(Mikey Madison) is a 23-year-old sex worker who serviced patrons of a club in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York City. One day, Ivan "Vanya" (Mark Eydelshteyn), the 21- year old spoiled party boy became Ani's customer. They had a lot of fun the first time, so Vanya kept on seeing Ani several more times after that, paying her $15,000 for an entire week of her services. In Las Vegas, he proposed for her to marry him, which she accepted.
That would have been the dream-come-true for this hard-working young stripper, but Vanya's oligarch parents Nikolai (Aleksei Serebryakov) and Galina (Darya Ekamasova) Zakharov could not accept their reckless marriage. They sent Vanya's godfather Toros (Karren Karagulian), his brother Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and their henchman Igor (Yura Borisov) to find Vanya and have the wedding annulled by hook or by crook.
This film by Sean Baker had taken the world by storm after it won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival last May 2024. Since then, it had been a staple in the year-end best-of lists of several, if not all, critics groups of various cities and countries, as well as receiving nominations from the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and likely the Oscars. We are watching this film with very high expectations as a result of this massive awards buzz.
Honestly, it was this hype that made me expect too much about this film that was basically a "Pretty Woman" scenario gone wrong. With the big build-up of everyone all looking for Vanya, the pay-off when they found him was quite a downer because it just happened, with no laugh-out-loud funny climax. You also expect something loud and explosive happens to Anora, but it turned out to be small, sweet and sentimental. Some may find this ending disappointing.
Anora is a difficult role for Mikey Morrison in the physical sense (both comedy and skin exposure), especially in Act 1 and 2. However, that quiet ending was her stellar highlight despite being downbeat and static. The Zacharovs were basically one-dimensional caricatures, but, the goons, especially those played by Karaguilan and Borisov, did make a very strong and memorable impressions the way their characters turned out. 7/10
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