Anora

Ah, fuck. I just spent an entire morning working on this review, and then I got distracted by a comment in the trailer for Anora about Letterboxd, "the Social Media Site" for movie fans. And then I couldn't stand the ads so I subscribed for a huge $19/per year. I feel like I went to Vegas and married myself and I can't get out of the sloppiness and lack of details. 

At any rate, pictured above is NOT Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan but a scene from Anora with Mark Eidel. And now I'm going to rewrite my painstaking review from memory, and move on with my day. So I'm starting now. NO, now. No really, now. And maybe next time work off line first, huh?  

******

This movie came out of nowhere and blew my mind. It won the Palm d'Or, which is French for "Good Movie." It's the story of a young woman who works at a strip club, a sort of dancer/escort–in other words, she's what we used to call an exotic dancer but she will go further if she likes you and you have the cash–she'll even walk with you to the ATM. She's a down to earth working girl - cue the lap dance scenes, as greazey redlight as you want it, with some charming and spicey backstage banter as well. And then one night in walks the son of a Russian Oligarch, and there's a request for a girl that speaks Russian. Now Anora, aka she prefers to be called Ani? is very American, VERY Brooklyn and her grandmother is from Russia, so she's knows a little bit of Russian. So Ani and Ivan, aka Vanya is his pet name meet, and sparks fly and condoms are unwrapped. And they proceed to party all over town, all over the bed, all over the couch at the gated compound overlooking the Bay, and then they're off to Vegas. And this time, what happens in Vegas does NOT stay in Vegas. They get married, and I gotta say, you want to believe. I want to believe. We all just want to believe, because Ani and Ivan are just so damn likable and cute together. But here's where our expectations get undermined and the movie stops being a "movie" and becomes something else. I've seen it described as "Sean Bakers take on Pretty Woman" which is fair.  He's the Florida Project guy.But what's great about this movie is that it takes our expectations and archetypes and twists them sideways, while the characters still remain strong and compelling. As you're watching, you forget you're watching. It's like you're following along, not in the self-conscious filmed-like-social-media way, but really there. The film-makers craft becomes tranparent and. you're another passenger on the car and plane on this breathless binge/hangover/repeat week of debauchery. The drugs feel real (someone did their research). The sex is just a little too real. And the scenes around Coney Island are super real. The burgers at 4 a.m. are real. The getting-your-car unhooked from the tow truck is real. The people feel real. They are all familiar and sympathetic and not Hollywood. And when the toughs that work for Dad show up, shit gets really real, but they're just doofs and not like movie toughs. You want the happy ending, and I don't mean the massage euphemism. You want Ivan to grow up and straighten out and be the archtype of the bad-boy-turned-good-by-the-Hooker-with-the-heart-of-God. You WANT Hal from Shakespeare's Henry IV ... come on, this is just a phase, and he's going to stay in America and work it out with his parents and do right by Ani. Because she deserves it. But it starts to dawn on all of us and finally Anora, that we've all been taken. Ivan is charming and generous of spirit and maybe he even means well, but he's just another bratty boy/man–as if the world didn't have enough of those–and we're all just emotional, /financial roadkill when we let these guys take the wheel, because they are absolutely untrustable. And in the end, it's not even his story-it's Anora's story, and Igor, one of the enforcers that takes a protective interest in her. Because he alone sees things as they are and appreciates her for who she is–a tough girl who's no Cinderella, and they're alike; they're both caught up in a rags-to-rags story, getting used up and thrown away by the rich. The ending is perfect. That's all I'll say. And yeah, you should see it if you haven't.