43/16

Tale

Anora, a young Brooklyn prostitute, meets an oligarch’s son and impulsively marries him

When word reaches Russia, her fairy tale is threatened when his parents travel to New York to get an annulment. Mikey Madison reflects on the roles that shaped her path to Anora, from Better Things; to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream. At a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Mikey Madison said that director Sean Baker would be performing various sexual positions with his wife, producer Samantha Quan, to demonstrate to the actors what he wanted them to do… In the Vegas scene, a character refers to “McCarran Airport.” Although Las Vegas International Airport was known as McCarran International Airport for decades, it was renamed Harry Reid International Airport in late 2021. Igor: PLEASE! STOP! SCREAM!

Mentioned in Close-Up: Anora (2024)

The hype around Anora is huge and it lived up to expectations. I had no idea what to expect going into this movie, other than combining all three of Sean Baker’s other movies in my head and thinking maybe it would be somewhere in the middle of all of that (The Florida Project, Red Rocket, and Tangerine – all great movies and all about prostitutes, by the way). It had similar tones and focus, but other than that Anora was a new beast in its own right. I will say that in terms of content, there was A LOT more Safdie Brothers in this movie than I expected! Lots of people yelling at each other for a very long time! Very suspenseful!

You have your part, your conflict, and your conclusion

The movie, like many great movies, unfolds in three acts. At first I had the impression that the structure would be a bit like Boogie Nights and I’d say that was pretty spot on. Without giving too much away, I will say that the ending left me impressed with the whole movie and my girlfriend agreed. You have a 2 hour experience, mostly funny and mostly engaging, that feels a bit cheesy while also offering a lot of very accurate details about the experience of sex work, but it all seems funny until you get to the heart of the matter, the ending. Instead of an ending that ties everything up nicely in a pretty bow, it’s an ending that ties the bow, opens the box, and leaves everything in its RAW reality. I was really impressed to see the specific energy of the packed house as the quiet credits rolled and people very slowly (very quietly) began to leave the theater.

Mikey Madison is fantastic as Anora

Seeing the ads for the film, I expected a vibrant, sweet girl – and she plays a tough, sassy con artist who is VERY New York, and that was a pleasant surprise. Anora is a likeable character, but not always, and that only adds to her humanity and the overall realism and complexity of her functionality as a main character. You’ll ride her rollercoaster of highs and lows, and the depth is very real. She’s also incredibly HOT, and there’s A LOT OF SEX in this movie. The entire cast is fantastic, but new faces Mark Eidelshtein and Yura Borisov impress the most as capable actors who deserve a much larger cast in the future. Eidelshtein stole the show as the most believable rich boy in madness of all time, and Borisov’s nuanced presence was loud and unspoken.

It’s nice to see this happen

I definitely think this is one of Baker’s two best movies ever, maybe his best, and one of the best movies of 2024. It’s really great to see this movie doing so well. The theater was packed at 9:30 on Monday night, and I hear the opening weekend attendance was one of the highest of the year. This is the kind of original, honest, and relevant filmmaking that should be seen, celebrated, and supported. I can’t wait to see Mikey Madison’s career blossom after this and I can’t wait to see more from Sean Baker.