Agree. It was a slog. Toward the end, as it started snowing in the film, I thought it could have been a good short story told from the first person perspective of either Ani or Igor, Igor's perhaps better. I wonder if the Russian element is what made me think this.
Brilliant. It’s tedious when any artist claims to simply “tell it like it is,” when true storytelling demands more reflection, more depth. Art can be both mirror and lamp. Materialism isn’t to be worshipped or celebrated. It’s killing us all.
Absolutely .. even one that may not ‘appeal to me - topically
Am an absolute ‘bear re fighting off spoilers.. but for some reason read a Review day after Oscars that was pretty dismissive.. & kinda seriously pissed me off
Will look forward to seeing the Film - with a vacant & open mind & I already applaud their outstanding success ! (green with envy !)
No depth to characters, mindless materialism, and the low hum of existential emptiness that accompanies contemporary consumerist life? SOLD! (thanks for reminding me that the only Oscar worth upholding is the furry one who lives in a trash can)
For me the major fault was the lack of agency for Anora and how disempowered she becomes. This concept of if"you fuck around, you will be fucked" has been challenged by women and even some men (think of the ending of Poor Things) and it is NOT how it is at least in Canada. We are not in th '50 s any more even though some( like Putin/Dugin would prefer that.
But movies are not neccessarily to be made to show how this and that is/should be better... that reminds me of Soviet Union's approach, and yes some movies were still very good while being didactical.
Some movies show things how they really are -and yes, that's how it really is, something happens in your life, maybe very early, and then something else happens maybe because people feel you're branded, somehow, even if you don't say a thing, and your way to have agency and even your way to be connected to somebody, to communicate, to say" thank you", "please", "yes" and "no" is through sex. You don't differentiate between intimacy-and intimacy of other kind.
It really takes decades and professional help if one is lucky/aware to find somebody good, to somehow change it. With it constantly lurking in the shadows.
One commenter says how Anora's nakedness is her armor-and yes, that what happens.
"Not fifties" and "not in Canada"-what, pedophiles and rapists somehow became progressive and just conveniently evaporated from certain time and place?
Sorry, it does remind me of that first "TV bridge" between US and then-USSR "We don't have sex in Soviet Union!" one lady said.
You have so many Anoras around you like you wouldn't believe. and they're not neccessarily sex workers. They just live next to you, shutting up, or doing stupid things, or both, and you later write stories about how women are strange like that, and difficult to understand. You bet, difficult for them themselves to understand.
Could another angle be taken? Of course it could.
but it's unpretentious film, a bit of a black comedy. No, it doesn't deserve Oscar, and no, it's nothing special.
But it might be, just might be, more helpful for another Ani out there, than some other movie, and might be more chances she watches it too.
Empowering lies first of all in being seen.
Then challenging the concepts come.
Sorry...it clearly touched a nerve with me. I'm usually not into passionate speeches on this platform, or try not to be.
In my defence-you do have an engaging comments' section, Sam.
Regardless of the film’s quality, I’m surprised you saw Anora as an endorsement of hollow materialism and oligarchy. Sean Baker has been making microbudget films about people struggling on the margins since 2004. In my opinion, his films Take Out, Tangerine, and Red Rocket are excellent. They don’t celebrate capitalism’s victors; they illuminate its victims. Anora is no different. A truly Putinist Best Picture choice, it seems to me, would simply hand the prize to the most financially successful and therefore best film. What am I missing?
Exactly. I don't understand how you get that moral from this film. Plus, it doesn't have a clear, single moral message... A quality shared by many great works of literature and film.
It seems to me like lots of assumptions are being made based purely on Yura Borisov having performed in a kremlin sponsored movie. Even though he's spoken out on the war in Ukraine.
As a filmmaker, I find this year’s Oscar discourse troubling - namely, the surge of unusually hostile tribalism that has taken hold online. The discussion around certain films pre- and post-Oscars has devolved into a blood sport. As a clumsy, pigeon-chested artist type who has always avoided professional sports, I find it disheartening to see one of our society's last remaining celebrations of art (woefully compromised though it may be) reduced to this. I respect the quality of the writing here, but disagree with the analysis, and fear the internet’s bad incentives and zero-sum pressures are eroding our ability to engage with art in a nuanced, literate way. I'm talking about this a bit on the LitHub podcast later this week, and I wrote about it a few weeks ago - https://alexrollinsberg.substack.com/p/defund-the-movie-police
I wasn't paying any attention to Borisov's politics when I wrote this. I was thinking much more about the mentality of the characters - everybody seems like an automaton, Toros and Garnik can only ever follow their orders, Anora is only ever interested in her meal ticket, Vanya is only ever going to obey his parents. The characters have no real inner conflicts - just external things that they want for tactical reasons - so the movie seems to me to have no depth or dimension. That's the absence of morality I'm discussing. It's essentially just reifying the existing power structure.
Hi Alex, What I would argue is that Putinism is based on a very particular way of seeing the world. It sees materialism and political hierarchy as fact and everything else - notions of equality, human rights, etc - as sentimental distraction. The film to me seems to mirror that mentality. There IS nothing else. The protest made by Anora and Igor at the end is so feeble that it might as well not exist. I would compare Anora to Leviathan, which has a similar steamroller effect with a Putinist local mayor overpowering a resident. There, all the forces of decency are similarly defeated, but they really do cry out - the film really is a call for rebellion of some kind. Anora, for me, doesn't do that. The system is so ingrained, and goes so deep into the mentality of the characters, that there's no question of any real fight or of any real alternative. It's maybe a bit subtle but that's where I see the difference.
Hey Sam, appreciate the discussion, and enjoyed your Super Bowl Ads post very much. I would argue that Anora belongs to the tradition / genre of black comedy, which portrays systems of power as so absurdly entrenched that resistance itself becomes either futile or a “joke.” If Leviathan still holds onto the tragic dignity of struggle, however doomed, black comedy often leans into a bleaker, more cynical realism, where any protest is deflated before it even begins. The feebleness of Anora and Igor’s protest is not Baker’s acceptance or endorsement of Putinism, but a structural feature of black comedy itself: the system is so totalizing that even the possibility of meaningful rebellion is futile. For me, this hits especially hard these days. I realize that black comedy isn’t for everyone, and it’s especially not popular in America. But being that I’m a demented connoisseur, perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised that others don’t detect or appreciate it as much as I do.
Sam, I’m curious what you thought of his previous film, Red Rocket?
Secondly, and this is not fully developed- but with the absolutely pervasive presence of porn online, it feels like anything superficially sexual is just a reminder of porns ubiquity. Any takers on this thought?
I haven't seen any other Baker films! So my ability to write on him is limited by that. Yeah, I know what you mean about porn and this film. Anora is so locked into a particular kind of male fantasy that the other characters keep having to remind themselves that she actually has an independent consciousness - and what's disturbing is that she seems to have trouble remembering that (she's completely dedicated to securing Ivan, even though it's completely obvious that they're a terrible match).
Ehhh maybe just a bit offended and dramatic, what with your end-of-civilization proclamation and notions of young smoke rolling film students (for a movie made by a gen-X’er). In any case, if you think this movie worships materialism then you definitely saw a different movie than I did, so it’s prob just down to differing opinion.
I'm not sure I fully agree with this reading of the film, though it is well-observed - I have to revisit Baker's filmography to view it in context.
I find myself wondering what a Conclave win (the runner-up, judging by SAG) would've said about us. An earnest-to-a-fault film about the power of the conscientious vote to defeat bullies and strongmen. All we need is to listen to our heart, says the film, and the Lord will reveal to us the good way. The sentiment is very unbelievable these days, but the film seems to believe it, the way a child believes in the rightness of the universe
You thought Conclave was earnest? And that it was about the Lord revealing the good way? I think we saw different movies. Conclave is a thriller--very tense, very fun, with just enough humor thrown in to lighten things up. And then, that ending! So good and satisfying!
It actually was very interesting to have these two movies paired this year. Conclave felt like the movie of the Dems - Kamala Harris, the shaking cathedral, that kind of thing - while Anora came from MAGA-land (the outer borough energy it's dealing with really is the primordial swamp of Trumpiness). Both movies had their problems, but I did prefer the earnestness of Conclave to the unreflective nihilism of Anora.
I really liked the movie for its chaotic energy and finely tuned (or attuned) performances. Nonetheless, I'm taken aback by how predictable it was - right up until the ending when I knew (like many other viewers I'm sure) that Ani would end up collapsing in Igor's arms in tears. As soon as the sensitive Igor was introduced, I also knew that the film would really (or ultimately) be about their courtship instead.
The most resonant - and saddest - part of the film is that Ani only knew how to repay Igor's kindness with sex. It makes you wonder what was going in her life prior to the film when transactional sex became the way she learnt to control (appease, subdue or exploit) men. Nakedness had somehow become her protective armour, and it is only when Igor actually looks into her eyes and tries to kiss her that she can finally let her guard down (or allow herself to feel seen, exposed and loved).
The irony is that Anora *is* a love story, it's just that the love is displaced into a relationship (or story) other than the transactional whirlwind romance that occurs in the foreground. So what's interesting about the film is that a developing love occurs behind the scenes or beyond Ani's immediate purview. The final moments appear to be what the film was really about all along - it's not so much a fairytale love story gone awry but about a begrudging willingness to finally feel seen and loved.
I really was down for this movie actually. I like this kind of gritty realism. And I was preparing myself to really like it for the first half-hour or so and then it felt like the wheels just totally came off. The next hour-and-a-half, give a take, is just people screaming and chasing each other around. I didn't feel any emotional progression - and, more to the point, I didn't think any progression was possible because the characters all had such limited inner lives, and were really totally locked into whatever their socioeconomic position happened to be.
Especially I loved your succint description of Ivan
Also, I wouldn't call "Anora" an awful movie-it's watchable, and is pretty funny where it supposed to be( me knowing Russian helps I guess?) -the acting is good, and yes, especially of these three-it does stay with you, in a way, which is already a rare thing, I speak about myself as of a late.
Its winning is yes, somewhat mind-boggling, as I'd give it maybe 7 on IMBd if I had an account there... but I never really follow Oscars.
Maybe they are, as @Monnina says, a storefront for current policies. Maybe tastes differ. Maybe other contendants(I watched "Anora" only) were even weaker.
Civilization doth show sighs of going-belly-up-soon.
Seconded on civilization's belly-up. I agree that this film wouldn't have bothered me or stayed with me if it hadn't won the Oscar. Something about that just really rubs me the wrong way. But, yes, you're right, the Oscars are deeply silly - and shame on me for paying attention to them.
Nice writing. As I read through the nuanced critique, I couldn't help but agree with the points of contention, just as each one spoke to what makes the film important. We don't need cliched Russians any more than we need heroes. I believe the film is wildly successful spilling out in excess the spiritual vapidity of US culture. I like the idea of collapsing what's considered a virtuous work ethic into sex work, just as we witness in the culture the continuous unfolding of religion into capitalism. Sex work is easily defined as transactional. The other side of the dialectic is the sex worker as healer. What if it's both? As a viewer, shouldn't we expect a bible from Putin, the bible salesman? Add to this angle a good dose of narcissism and we indeed have the foundation of the American dream.
Thank you Andy! I grant that - the film does hold up a mirror to US' culture spiritual vapidity. I guess I just feel like we kind of knew that already and what I'm interested in is seeing characters fighting for a way out.
Agree. It was a slog. Toward the end, as it started snowing in the film, I thought it could have been a good short story told from the first person perspective of either Ani or Igor, Igor's perhaps better. I wonder if the Russian element is what made me think this.
Thanks Sharad. Yeah, the end was kind nice....but it took an awfully long time to get there.
Brilliant. It’s tedious when any artist claims to simply “tell it like it is,” when true storytelling demands more reflection, more depth. Art can be both mirror and lamp. Materialism isn’t to be worshipped or celebrated. It’s killing us all.
Thank you Julie. Agreed. "Slice of life" isn't enough to make art. Art is choices all the time.
.. ain’t seen the Film yet .. Am intrigued re the Production Budget / Risk / PayOff !
Will soon get around to ‘That’ - the ‘story behind the Idea -> becoming Completed Film - aka ‘the Process
🦎🏴☠️🎬
They made bank on it! I am happy to see an indie film do well.
Absolutely .. even one that may not ‘appeal to me - topically
Am an absolute ‘bear re fighting off spoilers.. but for some reason read a Review day after Oscars that was pretty dismissive.. & kinda seriously pissed me off
Will look forward to seeing the Film - with a vacant & open mind & I already applaud their outstanding success ! (green with envy !)
No depth to characters, mindless materialism, and the low hum of existential emptiness that accompanies contemporary consumerist life? SOLD! (thanks for reminding me that the only Oscar worth upholding is the furry one who lives in a trash can)
Lol! Not much more to the film than that.
Wonder if our president of vice VJ Dance liked it.
I bet he did. It felt super-Trumpie tbh.
Yes!!! I was appalled that Anora won best picture. (Sorry, Susan.)
For me the major fault was the lack of agency for Anora and how disempowered she becomes. This concept of if"you fuck around, you will be fucked" has been challenged by women and even some men (think of the ending of Poor Things) and it is NOT how it is at least in Canada. We are not in th '50 s any more even though some( like Putin/Dugin would prefer that.
But movies are not neccessarily to be made to show how this and that is/should be better... that reminds me of Soviet Union's approach, and yes some movies were still very good while being didactical.
Some movies show things how they really are -and yes, that's how it really is, something happens in your life, maybe very early, and then something else happens maybe because people feel you're branded, somehow, even if you don't say a thing, and your way to have agency and even your way to be connected to somebody, to communicate, to say" thank you", "please", "yes" and "no" is through sex. You don't differentiate between intimacy-and intimacy of other kind.
It really takes decades and professional help if one is lucky/aware to find somebody good, to somehow change it. With it constantly lurking in the shadows.
One commenter says how Anora's nakedness is her armor-and yes, that what happens.
Agreed. Thanks Peter.
you're clearly not girls))
"Not fifties" and "not in Canada"-what, pedophiles and rapists somehow became progressive and just conveniently evaporated from certain time and place?
Sorry, it does remind me of that first "TV bridge" between US and then-USSR "We don't have sex in Soviet Union!" one lady said.
You have so many Anoras around you like you wouldn't believe. and they're not neccessarily sex workers. They just live next to you, shutting up, or doing stupid things, or both, and you later write stories about how women are strange like that, and difficult to understand. You bet, difficult for them themselves to understand.
Could another angle be taken? Of course it could.
but it's unpretentious film, a bit of a black comedy. No, it doesn't deserve Oscar, and no, it's nothing special.
But it might be, just might be, more helpful for another Ani out there, than some other movie, and might be more chances she watches it too.
Empowering lies first of all in being seen.
Then challenging the concepts come.
Sorry...it clearly touched a nerve with me. I'm usually not into passionate speeches on this platform, or try not to be.
In my defence-you do have an engaging comments' section, Sam.
Regardless of the film’s quality, I’m surprised you saw Anora as an endorsement of hollow materialism and oligarchy. Sean Baker has been making microbudget films about people struggling on the margins since 2004. In my opinion, his films Take Out, Tangerine, and Red Rocket are excellent. They don’t celebrate capitalism’s victors; they illuminate its victims. Anora is no different. A truly Putinist Best Picture choice, it seems to me, would simply hand the prize to the most financially successful and therefore best film. What am I missing?
Exactly. I don't understand how you get that moral from this film. Plus, it doesn't have a clear, single moral message... A quality shared by many great works of literature and film.
It seems to me like lots of assumptions are being made based purely on Yura Borisov having performed in a kremlin sponsored movie. Even though he's spoken out on the war in Ukraine.
As a filmmaker, I find this year’s Oscar discourse troubling - namely, the surge of unusually hostile tribalism that has taken hold online. The discussion around certain films pre- and post-Oscars has devolved into a blood sport. As a clumsy, pigeon-chested artist type who has always avoided professional sports, I find it disheartening to see one of our society's last remaining celebrations of art (woefully compromised though it may be) reduced to this. I respect the quality of the writing here, but disagree with the analysis, and fear the internet’s bad incentives and zero-sum pressures are eroding our ability to engage with art in a nuanced, literate way. I'm talking about this a bit on the LitHub podcast later this week, and I wrote about it a few weeks ago - https://alexrollinsberg.substack.com/p/defund-the-movie-police
I agree 100%
Thanks Alex, I'll give it a read. Really resonating with you here...
I take your point but I always think there has to be a place for honest criticism. Art can't really function without it.
I wasn't paying any attention to Borisov's politics when I wrote this. I was thinking much more about the mentality of the characters - everybody seems like an automaton, Toros and Garnik can only ever follow their orders, Anora is only ever interested in her meal ticket, Vanya is only ever going to obey his parents. The characters have no real inner conflicts - just external things that they want for tactical reasons - so the movie seems to me to have no depth or dimension. That's the absence of morality I'm discussing. It's essentially just reifying the existing power structure.
Hi Alex, What I would argue is that Putinism is based on a very particular way of seeing the world. It sees materialism and political hierarchy as fact and everything else - notions of equality, human rights, etc - as sentimental distraction. The film to me seems to mirror that mentality. There IS nothing else. The protest made by Anora and Igor at the end is so feeble that it might as well not exist. I would compare Anora to Leviathan, which has a similar steamroller effect with a Putinist local mayor overpowering a resident. There, all the forces of decency are similarly defeated, but they really do cry out - the film really is a call for rebellion of some kind. Anora, for me, doesn't do that. The system is so ingrained, and goes so deep into the mentality of the characters, that there's no question of any real fight or of any real alternative. It's maybe a bit subtle but that's where I see the difference.
Hey Sam, appreciate the discussion, and enjoyed your Super Bowl Ads post very much. I would argue that Anora belongs to the tradition / genre of black comedy, which portrays systems of power as so absurdly entrenched that resistance itself becomes either futile or a “joke.” If Leviathan still holds onto the tragic dignity of struggle, however doomed, black comedy often leans into a bleaker, more cynical realism, where any protest is deflated before it even begins. The feebleness of Anora and Igor’s protest is not Baker’s acceptance or endorsement of Putinism, but a structural feature of black comedy itself: the system is so totalizing that even the possibility of meaningful rebellion is futile. For me, this hits especially hard these days. I realize that black comedy isn’t for everyone, and it’s especially not popular in America. But being that I’m a demented connoisseur, perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised that others don’t detect or appreciate it as much as I do.
Sam, I’m curious what you thought of his previous film, Red Rocket?
Secondly, and this is not fully developed- but with the absolutely pervasive presence of porn online, it feels like anything superficially sexual is just a reminder of porns ubiquity. Any takers on this thought?
I haven't seen any other Baker films! So my ability to write on him is limited by that. Yeah, I know what you mean about porn and this film. Anora is so locked into a particular kind of male fantasy that the other characters keep having to remind themselves that she actually has an independent consciousness - and what's disturbing is that she seems to have trouble remembering that (she's completely dedicated to securing Ivan, even though it's completely obvious that they're a terrible match).
Reading this made me think of Bosley Crowther, if he could write well.
Lol! Does that mean it's mean-spirited?
Ehhh maybe just a bit offended and dramatic, what with your end-of-civilization proclamation and notions of young smoke rolling film students (for a movie made by a gen-X’er). In any case, if you think this movie worships materialism then you definitely saw a different movie than I did, so it’s prob just down to differing opinion.
Thanks for watching it so we don’t ever have to. The Oscar awards have always been a global storefront for current US politics.
Thanks Monnina!
I'm not sure I fully agree with this reading of the film, though it is well-observed - I have to revisit Baker's filmography to view it in context.
I find myself wondering what a Conclave win (the runner-up, judging by SAG) would've said about us. An earnest-to-a-fault film about the power of the conscientious vote to defeat bullies and strongmen. All we need is to listen to our heart, says the film, and the Lord will reveal to us the good way. The sentiment is very unbelievable these days, but the film seems to believe it, the way a child believes in the rightness of the universe
You thought Conclave was earnest? And that it was about the Lord revealing the good way? I think we saw different movies. Conclave is a thriller--very tense, very fun, with just enough humor thrown in to lighten things up. And then, that ending! So good and satisfying!
I wrote a piece about Conclave here - https://www.metropolitanreview.org/p/stand-up-for-better-oscar-bait
It actually was very interesting to have these two movies paired this year. Conclave felt like the movie of the Dems - Kamala Harris, the shaking cathedral, that kind of thing - while Anora came from MAGA-land (the outer borough energy it's dealing with really is the primordial swamp of Trumpiness). Both movies had their problems, but I did prefer the earnestness of Conclave to the unreflective nihilism of Anora.
I really don’t care about movies I’m just here to say your writing in this essay is so effing good.
sorry, I answered you, but realized I'm talking to several people, so reposted in the general thread.
Just to second you how I think precisely the same about the writing.
Lol! Thanks Chen!
Thank you so much Anne! Means a lot.
I really liked the movie for its chaotic energy and finely tuned (or attuned) performances. Nonetheless, I'm taken aback by how predictable it was - right up until the ending when I knew (like many other viewers I'm sure) that Ani would end up collapsing in Igor's arms in tears. As soon as the sensitive Igor was introduced, I also knew that the film would really (or ultimately) be about their courtship instead.
The most resonant - and saddest - part of the film is that Ani only knew how to repay Igor's kindness with sex. It makes you wonder what was going in her life prior to the film when transactional sex became the way she learnt to control (appease, subdue or exploit) men. Nakedness had somehow become her protective armour, and it is only when Igor actually looks into her eyes and tries to kiss her that she can finally let her guard down (or allow herself to feel seen, exposed and loved).
The irony is that Anora *is* a love story, it's just that the love is displaced into a relationship (or story) other than the transactional whirlwind romance that occurs in the foreground. So what's interesting about the film is that a developing love occurs behind the scenes or beyond Ani's immediate purview. The final moments appear to be what the film was really about all along - it's not so much a fairytale love story gone awry but about a begrudging willingness to finally feel seen and loved.
I really was down for this movie actually. I like this kind of gritty realism. And I was preparing myself to really like it for the first half-hour or so and then it felt like the wheels just totally came off. The next hour-and-a-half, give a take, is just people screaming and chasing each other around. I didn't feel any emotional progression - and, more to the point, I didn't think any progression was possible because the characters all had such limited inner lives, and were really totally locked into whatever their socioeconomic position happened to be.
I second Anne.
Especially I loved your succint description of Ivan
Also, I wouldn't call "Anora" an awful movie-it's watchable, and is pretty funny where it supposed to be( me knowing Russian helps I guess?) -the acting is good, and yes, especially of these three-it does stay with you, in a way, which is already a rare thing, I speak about myself as of a late.
Its winning is yes, somewhat mind-boggling, as I'd give it maybe 7 on IMBd if I had an account there... but I never really follow Oscars.
Maybe they are, as @Monnina says, a storefront for current policies. Maybe tastes differ. Maybe other contendants(I watched "Anora" only) were even weaker.
Civilization doth show sighs of going-belly-up-soon.
Seconded on civilization's belly-up. I agree that this film wouldn't have bothered me or stayed with me if it hadn't won the Oscar. Something about that just really rubs me the wrong way. But, yes, you're right, the Oscars are deeply silly - and shame on me for paying attention to them.
Nice writing. As I read through the nuanced critique, I couldn't help but agree with the points of contention, just as each one spoke to what makes the film important. We don't need cliched Russians any more than we need heroes. I believe the film is wildly successful spilling out in excess the spiritual vapidity of US culture. I like the idea of collapsing what's considered a virtuous work ethic into sex work, just as we witness in the culture the continuous unfolding of religion into capitalism. Sex work is easily defined as transactional. The other side of the dialectic is the sex worker as healer. What if it's both? As a viewer, shouldn't we expect a bible from Putin, the bible salesman? Add to this angle a good dose of narcissism and we indeed have the foundation of the American dream.
Thank you Andy! I grant that - the film does hold up a mirror to US' culture spiritual vapidity. I guess I just feel like we kind of knew that already and what I'm interested in is seeing characters fighting for a way out.