Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2024
#3. Anora

It’s kind of amazing that Sean Baker is seemingly on the verge of Best Director and Best Picture wins at this weekend’s Oscars. Here’s a fiercely independent filmmaker whose movies depict America’s underbelly, often focusing on sex workers ground down by the heel of capitalism.

I’m still wary that the Cinderella story will end with someone more traditional winning the prize. I’m reminded of when Richard Linklater’s Boyhood looked like it would capture the top awards, only to lose to Birdman.

Indie stalwarts don’t often get the storybook ending.

Perhaps that’s appropriate given that Baker’s Anora is itself a Cinderella story, one in which the handsome prince is the spoiled and insecure son of a Russian oligarch. And in this one it’s up to the viewer to decide if the princess gets a happy ending.

Mikey Madison plays Ani, a stripper and sometime prostitute whose Russian background puts her in the arms of strip club customer Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), a super rich kid who treats Brighton Beach like his personal playground.

The two hit it off during a week of lavish partying and end up eloping in Las Vegas. Vanya’s parents aren’t thrilled to hear the news and enlist his godfather, an Armenian priest, to secure an annulment.

I love this film’s unpredictability. At one moment it’s a buoyant story of burgeoning love (or at least lust), then suddenly it downshifts into a screwball comedy with a hint of danger. Then it’s an After Hours-style comic fever dream, before it becomes a different sort of love story. And through all of that it indicts the American dream as a fantasy that never quite applies to people like Ani.

What a whirlwind of a movie! It’s exhilarating, funny, sexy, and sad, and yet it always feels incredibly grounded. Baker populates many of the scenes with real people who often didn’t know they were being filmed, bringing the Russian-heavy Brighton Beach to vivid life.

Madison anchors the film with her fierce performance as Ani, a woman who won’t compromise or be compromised, until she has no other choice. Just as good are the supporting actors, including Eydelshteyn, Baker regular Karren Karagulian as Toros, and Oscar-nominated Yura Borisov, whose henchman Igor slowly emerges as one of the movie’s most important characters.

It’s hard not to fall hard for this cast and this film, which I suspect is why such an unlikely movie has become an Oscar frontrunner. Seldom do movies take you on such a wild ride then leave you with so much to think about.