33/39
Narrative
Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, impulsively meets and marries the son of an oligarch
Once news reaches Russia, her fairy tale is threatened as her parents head to New York to have the marriage annulled. IMDb editor Arno Kazarian offers quick versions of 12 films he screened at the 2024 New York Film Festival, including Anora and the dangerous and curiously erotic Misericordia. Karren Karagulian has starred in every Sean Baker film, and this is her biggest role in any of his.
In a Vegas scene, a character refers to “McCarran Airport” ; While Las Vegas International Airport was known as McCarran International Airport for many decades, its name was changed to Harry Reid International Airport in late 2021
Igor: PLEASE! STOP! SCREAM!.
Referenced in Close-Up: Anora (2024)
Sean Baker is up there with Chloé Zhao as one of the most humanist and empathetic filmmakers of our generation. His sense of the disenfranchised and his ability to show the limits of the American dream solidify his place as an important and indispensable artistic voice. That said, his latest film ANORA proves that he is much more a filmmaker of character and atmosphere than of plot.
Yet the comedy often feels more contrived than a natural product of the characters’ history
What begins as a promising screwball comedy with characteristically poignant notes turns into a full-on slapstick farce in dire need of an editor, with some scenes spinning in circles to the point where I wanted Paul Simon to come out and sing, “I’m on my way/I don’t know where I’m going/But I’m on my way…” The work of Blake Edwards seems to be a subconscious influence here, making such excesses a little more understandable; A film like VICTOR/VICTORIA could be a masterpiece if it didn’t have one barroom brawl too many. idiosyncrasies, and a poignant but abrupt ending scene would have worked better if some of the antics had been traded for more moments that fleshed out the protagonist beyond, well, his flesh. Mikey Madison certainly maximizes what she can maximize with an underwritten character (the added nuance perhaps provided by Baker’s regular co-writer Chris Bergoch seems lacking), and the supporting cast does the same, particularly Baker’s regular collaborator Karren Karagulian.
I think a film about her story would have ultimately been much more interesting
But after loving Baker’s last two films, which were less plot-driven and more atmospheric, empathetic studies of neglected American communities, this film proves to be a huge disappointment. There are a few scenes in the film that feature a seemingly lonely and melancholy maid character forced to clean up the excessive mess left by the spoiled rich man she works for.
https://gulshantraders.com/never-let-go-2024-multi-hc-torrent/