MARK EDELSHTEIN AND MIKEY MADISON IN ANORA

The most fun at Cannes comes to America

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In Competition at Cannes it won the top award, the Palme d'Or. Remember Baker scored high with Tangerine about two "working girls" in 2015. Anora could be seen as a much more realistic version of Pretty Woman, spinning out a "whirlwind sex-work romance," says Peter Debruge in his Variety review that "sparkles like the tinsel in its leading lady's hair." She's a New York stripper and he's the "reckless son of a Russian oligarch." The film that has a Safdie brothers flavor Debruge calls "compulsively entertaining, 80-proof emotional ride." Anora or "Ani" (MIkey Madison) is part Russian and speaks a bit of the language learned from her grandma, and shares a small house in Brighton Beach with her sister.

It's at the Manhattan strip club, HQ, where she's an escort and lap dancer that she gets sent to the table of young big spender Ivan, aka Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), and Ivan and Ani, close in age, click at once. The next day he brings her to his nearby mansion; she negotiates for $15K up front when he wants her to stay. 138 minutes "race by" (though a few could be lost) in a "full-throttle tragicomedy of romance, denial and betrayal," Peter Bradshaw says in his 4/5 star Guardian review, A "a non-love story which finds its apex in a Las Vegas wedding chapel in the middle of the night, "slaloms downwards into the most extraordinary, cacophonous uproar of recrimination unfolding in what is more or less real time." David Rooney in Hollywood Reorter says. "Sex workers have been a big part of Baker's gallery of outsiders" (as they have), and this makes Anora "a fine addition to his terrific body of work."

Ani has "a sweetness that humanizes even the most transactional situations" as well as "a defensiveness that makes her dangerous when threatened" - i.e., like when Ivan's dad sends goons to break up this mismatch, Ivan bolts, and Ani does a stand-off. Vegas is for the wedding, but they spend a lot of time at Brighten Beach-adjacent locales with Vanya and his "retinue of Russian-speaking locals," in Coney Island, "a pool hall, a video game arcade, Tatiana Grill on the boardwalk," etc. shot in 35mm with anamorphic lenses thus a messy but "satisfying watch." The images are blurry and bleary, ample and wintry. The leads are "terrific" (Madison) and "watchable" (Eydelshteyn) and " Baker’s film-making is muscular and fluent," wrote Bradshaw. In an enthusiastic Oscar Expert YouTube review Brother Bro (Mason Jaeger) called Anora, which he gave 9 out of 10, the best film he'd seen at Cannes, and predicted it would go on to collect many laurels in the US awards season with multiple Oscar noms including Best Actor and Best Actress for the leads.

All the attention has been on Mikey Madison, perhaps because she is so authentically needy. I give a strong vote for Mark Eydelshteyn because I haven't ever seen a type like that, both delicate and unbridled, and he's a genuine young Russian actor. This kind of story may not be so unusual, even a cliché, but Sean Baker makes it so rich, mainly through setting it in a Russian context, and carrying that through very solidly, with lots of Russian-speaking characters whose English may not even be that great, including Vanya.

The story is rich also because of its ambiguity. Vanya's parents laugh and sneer, saying this is not a marriage and this is not a love. But in a brief interview Mark Eidelshtein says he thinks this is Vanya's first love, "and maybe his last." He tells Ani he's 21 but he's really much younger, and when the goons and then his parents come to pop the bubble an illusion is shattered; Mark thinks he grows up instantly. Let's admit in their juvenile way Vanya and Ani did instantly fall in love with each other, so this is a "crime" and a bit of big misbehavior but also a romance. For all the crudity and humor, this is Sean Baker's sweetest (and then disillusioned) film as well as its most mainstream and multigenerational in appeal. The Sean Baker part is also in the long slow process of dismantling the dream. This is a tremendously fun film that also gives you a lot to chew on.

And the chewing doesn't stop. When it's all "over," the marriage is broken up, Vanya is gone, Ani is still left with the assistant Igor (Yura Borisov), and between Mikey and Yura what happens is very interesting.

Anora, 139 mins., debuted in Competition at Cannes May 21, 2024, winning the top prize, the Palme d'Or. Shown in at least two dozen international festivals including Telluride, Toronto, San Sebastien, Vancouver, New York, Mumbai, Hamburg, Zurich, Busan and London. Limited US theatrical (Neon) release Oct. 18. Metacritic rating: 91%.


MIKEY MADISON IN ANORA

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.