Details from IMDB:
Anora
A young stripper 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.
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- Stars
Initial Thoughts:
It took a while but I convinced my wife to watch this last night, obviously I had heard about it as it won Best Picture and Mike Madison won Best Actress, I had wanted to see it also after hearing Rebecca talk about it on the Geekshow podcast.
Main Points:
I’ve got to say I was impressed how this movie goes for it terms of showing what it’s like to work at a strip club, it becomes clear right away that this movie will have a lot of nudity and sex. I would call this a very twisted version of “Pretty Woman” with even a little bit of “Cinderella” thrown in for good measure. Mikey Madison does an incredible job and while I didn’t see all of the nominations, I think just for the sheer physical effort put in here she truly deserved it. Not only did she do all of the dancing/stripping/sex scenes but she did all of the fight scenes too! Truly incredible, I doubt almost anyone else in Hollywood could do this.
In terms of the story, I very much enjoyed it but I do think the movie ran a little long and a good half hour could have been taken out, especially during the many scenes trying to find Ivan. There are some really cool long/continuous shots and I thought that the sunset scene looked amazing. There is also a very intense scene, that goes on for a while when Anora is confronted by mafia/thugs types who are trying to get Ivan back and stop her from getting away. While there is violence and some blood I appreciate that the director did not go too far in what could have been a very disturbing violent/potential rape scene.
There is a twist in the second last act of the movie that, maybe while I should have, didn’t see coming and it was good. Really this is Mikey Madison’s movie, everyone else is mostly just there with a noticeable exception of Yura Borisov who does do a great job with Ivan, hired muscle who does his job but acts with kindness and sympathy when he can, he deserved a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for sure. I also quite enjoyed how they showed the huge gap in attitude/lifestyle between the generation in their young 20s versus people in their 40s and beyond.
Final Thoughts:
It goes without saying that this movie is not for children, lots of nudity, sex, drug use, violence, coarse language and some blood certainly makes this movie a hard R, ages 19+. I very much look forward to seeing Mikey Madison in future projects and I think Sean Baker did a great job both writing and directing. A solid 7.5 out of 10 from me, mainly due to length and one scene in the middle which I felt went on too long. Would highly recommend it to those not offended by this content, it has some beautiful scenes including one at the end where two people have sex and never speak a word during, quite touching.