Film Review: Anora 阿諾拉 (2024) - USA
Rating: 7.5/10
2025 Review Count - 51
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Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)
Sean Baker’s “Anora” is a film that lingers in the liminal space between fairy tale and cautionary fable, where love is both a transaction and a rebellion. With his signature unflinching eye for marginalized lives, Baker invites us into the neon-lit world of Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Mikey Madison), a Brooklyn stripper whose whirlwind marriage to the wayward oligarch heir Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) becomes a bruising collision of desire, class, and cultural dislocation. The film’s triumphs—Madison’s ferocious, career-best performance; Baker’s vibrant vérité style—are undeniable, even as its narrative stumbles into well-worn grooves.
Madison, with her razor-sharp wit and wounded resilience, commands the screen. Her Ani is no passive ingénue but a pragmatist navigating a world where every gesture is a negotiation. When she accepts Vanya’s impulsive Vegas proposal, the moment feels less like romance than a gambit for agency—a theme Baker mines with tragicomic precision. Eydelshteyn, meanwhile, embodies the hollow charm of inherited privilege; his Vanya is a petulant man-child whose rebellion against his parents (Aleksei Serebryakov and Darya Ekamasova, icy perfection) is as performative as his gaming-streamer persona. Their chemistry is electric, though the script’s third-act reliance on familial melodrama (henchmen, annulment threats, airport confrontations) leans into tropes that undercut the story’s early audacity.
Baker’s direction thrums with vitality, particularly in the film’s first half. A chaotic strip-club sequence, shot in dizzying long takes, juxtaposes Ani’s professional savvy with Vanya’s clueless hedonism. Later, a claustrophobic showdown in the oligarch’s mansion—where Karren Karagulian’s Toros dissects Ani’s “romance” with merciless clarity—crackles with tension. Yet the plot’s predictability, particularly in its rushed finale, dulls the impact. When Ani confronts Igor (Yura Borisov, a brooding standout) in a carnal, tear-streaked reckoning, the scene should devastate. Instead, it feels like a narrative shortcut, a climax more schematic than earned.
The Oscars’ embrace of “Anora”—Best Picture, Director, and Actress—speaks to its surface-level dazzle and timely themes. But does it transcend? Baker’s earlier works (“The Florida Project”, “Red Rocket”) balanced empathy with ambiguity, leaving room for critique. Here, the satire of wealth and immigrant identity occasionally veers toward caricature (Galina’s villainous dismissal of Ani borders on pantomime), while the script’s feminist undertones clash with a finale that reduces Ani’s defiance to a symbolic middle finger.
Yet to dismiss “Anora” would be to overlook its beating heart. In Madison’s trembling resolve as she pockets Toros’ cash, or the fleeting humanity of Igor returning her wedding ring, Baker reminds us that even in a world of transactional relationships, dignity persists. The film is messy, uneven, and deeply human—a flawed gem that glints brighter than its polish suggests. (Neo, 2025)