Anora Is the Pick of the Week

Oscar-winner Sean Baker is a very interesting filmmaker, even if most of his films are about the plight of the sex worker. However, there is enough style and substance to them that makes him one of the most original directors of his time. With last year’s Academy Award-winning Anora, I think Baker reached his zenith, despite the fact that I still have yet to see it.

Judging by the premise of it, the film looks and sounds like a sort of an anti-Cinderella story. Mikey Madison (who won a somewhat controversial Best Actress Oscar for her performance, beating Demi Moore, the favorite to win for The Substance) is Anora “Ani” Mikheeva, a streetwise, edgy stripper/sex worker from Brooklyn, who gets her own fairy tale (and more than she bargained for) when she meets, falls in love with, and marries the son of a Russian oligarch. When the news reaches his country, her newfound luck gets threatened as his parents come to New York, hellbent on anulling the marriage.

Seeing many film clips (with sex and nudity), it can be described as an erotic screwball comedy, one with a raw edge that feels more real than most mainstream films. It looks like the most explicit scenes feel natural and modern, without the prudish element that America still wants to shy away from. With this, Baker gives people in the sex-worker world more relevance than he did with 2015’s Tangerine and 2021’s Red Rocket. I love that he gives outsiders and misfits of society a chance to have their own voices heard.

Although being a film that was just released last year, I do get why Anora is now a part of the Criterion Collection, which gives the film the deluxe treatment, one includes supplements such as two audio commentaries: one featuring Baker, Coco, producer Samantha Quan, and cinematographer Drew Daniels, and the other featuring Baker and actors Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Mikey Madison, and Vache Tovmasyan; new making-of documentary; new interviews with Baker and Madison; deleted scenes; Q&A with Madison and actor-stripper Lindsey Normington; and more.

If you’re anxious to see this film (just like I am), and love Baker’s other works, then the good folks at Criterion definitely have you covered with their new stacked releases (available in 4K UHD, Blu, and DVD).

Other interesting releases:

Basquiat (Criterion): Julian Schnabel’s beguiling portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the gifted and magnetic New York artist, who road to fame and fortune was paved with demons, from racism to addiction. Read my review.

Prince of Broadway (Criterion): Baker’s 2008 tale of a New York hustler specializing in cheap knock-offs, who finds his highly profitable game suddenly complicated when his ex-girlfriend shows up toting the son he never knew he had.

Last Tango in Paris (Vinegar Syndrome): Late director Bernardo Bertolucci’s incredibly controversial 1973 masterpiece starring Marlon Brando as a middle-aged widower who starts a very strange and troubling affair with a young French girl (Maria Schneider).

Swept Away (Raro/Kino): Lina Wertmuller’s highly controversial 1974 film about sex, love, and politics, where Raffaella (Mariangela Melato), a rich and gorgeous capitalist, torments Gennarino (Giancarlo Giannini), a Communist sailor, after they find themselves stranded on a deserted island together.

Dirty Harry (Warner): Don Siegel’s influential 1971 crime thriller starring Clint Eastwood (in one of his signature roles) as Harry Callahan, a tough-as-nails, rule-breaking cop tracking down a relentless serial killer known as ‘Scorpio’ (Andrew Robinson).