I previously said that The Substance was the sensation of this year's Cannes Film Festival. Although it received a standing ovation lasting thirteen-minutes at most, it did not win the prestigious Palme d'Or award. Sean Baker's Anora did. Let's finally meet her.
Anora "Ani" Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) is an exotic dancer and escort at a Manhattan night club. One night, her boss introduces her to Ivan Zakharov (Mark Eidelstein), the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch. Ivan, aka "Vanya," soon offers her $15,000 to be his girlfriend for the week. That special week involves a Vegas Vacation, complete with a quickie wedding!
Unfortunately, Vanya's parents don't take the wedding well and decide to fly over to force an annulment. In the meantime, Vanya's godfather Toros (Karren Karagulian) and his goons, Igor (Yura Borisov) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), are dispatched to detain the couple. But Vanya runs out, so Ani and the guys drive around Manhattan looking for him. It's not that easy.
It may sound like a quick film, but at 139-minutes, it’s actually the opposite. An extensive scene involves Toros and his goons invading Ani and Vanya's mansion, which gradually goes from nightmarish to farcical. She panics, not helped by Vanya fleeing earlier, and fights off the goons, trashing the living room in the process. Toros can only watch in disbelief as the situation spirals out of control. After the even lengthier drive through Manhattan, they strongarm a judge into a quickie annulment hearing only - surprise! - they're in the wrong state! And they get a ticket! It's a lengthy second act, but it's still pretty funny.
You won't forget Ani once it's all done. She only gets a few scenes, at most, in her humble Brighton Beach house, which she shares with her sister. One can sense that her desire for more helped attract her to Vanya. It also helps that Vanya's nice guy act is convincing enough you'll want their marriage to succeed. She, especially, wants her marriage to succeed. But you'll understand Toros's protestations once Vanya's manchild behavior becomes impossible to ignore. The third act brutally cuts down her Cinderella Dream, but at least she gets some brutal parting words for her temporary mother-in-law, the icy Galina Zakharova (Darya Ekamasova), which even amuses temporary father-in-law Nikolai (Aleksei Serebryakov). You'll especially feel for her during her last scene, which leaves her an uncertain future.
Now for the villains, for lack of a better word. One of their worst acts is Igor trashing a candy store on Toros's orders, but that is punctuated by the owner's bewildered reaction. They're pretty much sympathetic punch-clock villains who are just trying to clean-up Vanya's messes. Toros shows some sympathy for Ani's predicament, even if he later disregards her as a gold-digger. Garnick ought to be the more threatening goon, but he gets beaten around too much to be a threat. You'll even feel sorry for him when he gets carsick! Igor, however, spends most of the movie building a rapport with Ani. When it's all done, you'll feel that they were the better match all along.
The cinematography by Drew Daniels is splendid, complemented by the equally impressive production design of Stephen Phelps. These aspects go great together in Las Vegas, which the poster showcases, and are quite spectacular when we see Ani and Vanya's private suite. In New York, we get to see Ani and Vanya's mansion, a spectacular house which is owned in real life by oligarch Vasily Anisimov. Its less glamorous locations are still impressive, while a blizzard accentuates the melancholic finale rather well. There's a score by Joseph Capalbo, but some of the most significant scenes lack score of any kind.
I don't know if Anora will win Best Picture at the Oscars, as some critics are saying. It's a bit long, and it puts the bitter in bittersweet. But it's still a good movie about a woman standing up for herself in a dismissive world. It helps having some great comic relief with its alleged villains. There's quite a bit I'm leaving out of this review, and I'll leave it to you to see them when you meet Anora at your nearest theatre. That's it for now.