Latenight Film Club no. 3
Anora (2024) by Sean Baker
Ah yes, perhaps the most-hyped film of the last six months1. Since we first watched Sean Baker’s glitzy whirlwind of a movie in the Ritzy Cinema back in December ‘24, the film has swept up five Oscars and a host of other awards - not least because of a purported $18 million publicity campaign to get them there (3 times the production budget)2.
Below is our verdict, hot off the velvet seat and (relatively) untainted by all the awards-season noise. Beware: spoilers.
Title, release date: Anora, 2024
Directed by: Sean Baker
Starring: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn
Chosen by: Paula
Synopsis: “A young escort from Brooklyn meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairy tale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.” - IMDB
Our synopsis: Nothing to add.
The Conversation
Paula: This film was so mega-hyped that I had really, really high expectations going into it. I still really enjoyed it and thought it was very good.
Natoli: But it de-hyped it for you?
P: Yes…
N: I really fucking liked it.
P: Yes - it did get the emotional side of things very right as well. Like, the parts where they’re just meeting each other and hanging out, and they’re really obsessed with each other and he’s paying her loads of money, and she’s loving it, you know - they’re in Vegas and having fun and happy and shit - you totally feel that whole thing with them. It’s such a brain-tickling thing, that part of the film. Second-hand happiness.
N: I don’t know - it didn’t make me feel happy because I knew it was all fake, so I wasn’t really…
P: No - I don’t mean happiness in the sense of real happiness, more like
N: Bliss?
P: Yeah, like ecstasy. They also did such a good job of a young, spoilt man - the way he (Vanya) just switches on her (Anora) and turns into a little baby as soon as things get difficult, how he jut completely shuts down and doesn’t give any fucks, and then just does whatever his parents tell him.
N: I kind of think he was a baby the whole time.
P: And she’s used to people who…
N: Grown-ass men?
P: Yeah! Adults. Or just people that live in the real world, so they have to do the things that they say they will. But he doesn’t live in the real world. They did that so well - and the mother! She was terrifying. She looked like such a nasty bitch. Such good casting.
N: I had no idea what this was all really going to be about. I thought it was going to be way more gruesome, way more fucked up and end up in some -
P: Death?
N: Not death, worse! Human trafficking, mafia shit - it would’ve probably turned into a clichè but that’s what I was expecting. The whole time, I thought “something’s going to switch, something’s going to switch”, and it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole fucking time. Especially when she brought up rape in that scene with Igor (played by Yura Borasov) - I was like, “is this guy going to go batshit crazy?”. Because he kept looking at her in this way, and until he started taking care of her…
P: He seemed so unpredictable.
N: Exactly, because he really looked like a ‘Gopnik’3.
P: This is why the casting is so good! It really plays on our own prejudices so well. The whole time, we’re expecting something worse to happen.
In three words
P: Glittery class critique. 3.5/5
N: Sexy and serious. 4.25/5