I don't have Instagram - I'm an adult

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2024

#5 :  Anora

The director of Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket returned with another immersive, high-energy, incredibly humane dissection of the American Dream this year, scooping the Palme D’Or at Cannes Film Festival with romance-slash-comedy-slash-drama Anora. Baker’s casting of Mikey Madison, as the titular sex worker who falls into a whirlwind affair and impulsive marriage with the son of a Russian oligarch, is a stroke of genius, and ‘Ani’ is truly a star-making role for the actor. She is completely magnetic throughout – through the neon-doused club montages, the farcical physical comedy set-pieces, and the gut-wrenching emotional moments. You’ll never hear Take That’s ‘Greatest Day’ the same again.

Fresh off a reasonably successful Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Actress, Original Screenplay, and Film Editing), I come to this - I'm sure it's good, but I just get the impression it will be a bit depressing. Mikey Madison is supposed to be very good though, so I should probably watch it for that (and because Empire tells me to).

Ani (Mikey Madison) is a sex-worker who meets Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), a Russian oligarch's son and, as Empire puts it, "a whirlwind affair and impulsive marriage" results. And basically, they're both totally deluded - in a quite sweet, but also quite annoying, way (to start with, at least). You know it's going to end badly, but I didn't guess exactly how it was going to do so - and the film certainly keeps you guessing because it switches the styles around to keep you on your toes.

The first hour is very bang-bang-bang as we follow Ani and Vanya on their meet-and-marry and for me it had waaaay too many short scenes for me - I felt like I was watching a TikTok movie (with a lot of sex in it). As the real world then encroaches on them, it then all changes to be a drama/caper kinda thing - it's aiming for Tarantinoesque, but it all feels a bit unnecessarily frantic. And then, in the last twenty minutes, it turns into a two-header which gets surprisingly tender and sombre - and actually comes a lot close to Tarantinoesque for me. And I liked the ending - I thought they were going to ruin it, but they rescued it well.

Mikey Madison is very good in this - her character doesn't have a clue what's going on for large portions of the film and she shows it on her face as you follow her through the highs and the lows. We have met her before in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, but this is definitely a step upMark Eydelshteyn is good as Vanya, but he's SUCH an annoying character that it's hard to warm to him - whereas you do warm to Ani, despite her having some very sharp edges.

Other actors that stood out for me were Karren Karagulian as Toros, Vanya's "babysitter" who has been somewhat derelict in his duties - and boy does he worry about the consequences (for him, anyway). I actually recognised Yuri Borosov as Igor, one of Toros' fixers, but would never have remembered it was from Compartment No. 6 - he has an interesting role as the still centre of the somewhat chaotic second half. And finally, Darya Ekamasova isn't in it much but she's very good as Galina Zakharova, Vanya's mum - she's amusingly scary.

This is our second visit with Sean Baker and it shares some themes with Red Rocket with dubious characters living somewhat unusual lives, but this is a much more accomplished film - but with five times the budget, that's possibly not such a surprise. However, he "only" had $6 million dollars here and he's done quite a lot with it (including hiring out a VERY fancy house). And there's an argument he's done too much with it - whilst there's a lot to like about it, I found the variety of styles somewhat jarring.

But did I actually like it? Well, it's a bit odd really because there were large portions of this that I really didn't like - the first hour was well done, but was just too rapido for my liking. I definitely preferred the next section, but did have a nagging doubt it wasn't as good as it thought it was - and again the pace felt off. It was only as things slowed down in the final section that I'd say I really enjoyed it - the only characters left in it at that point were given time and space for me to appreciate them. Which I think has left me feeling more charitable towards the film than it probably deserved - I can imagine plenty of people turning this off after the first thirty minutes because, although well done, it's very one-note. 

As a whole though, I think it manages to tell an interesting enough story with engaging (if often unlikeable) characters and it's stylish and well-acted - it's also not nearly as depressing as I feared (if not exactly being upbeat). As previously mentioned The Academy Awards liked it a lot with Sean Baker becoming the first person to win four Oscars for one film - it also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. I think it unlikely it's going to win my Best Picture award, but I definitely feel it's worth checking out as much for Mikey Madison's performance as anything else - somewhat peculiarly it doesn't seem to available anywhere to stream free but it can be rented in all the usual places.

#6 - Charming and heartwarming
#4 - Doesn't quite hit the spot for me