Anora ★★★★☆

When I saw this film won Best Picture at this year's Oscars, I was surprised since I knew the premise and did not think much of the film when it first came out. I will admit, even going into the film initially, I went in pretty much blind besides seeing one trailer, and it was definitely one of the strangest yet untouched subjects for a film. The story follows a sex worker named Anora who has a rich client named Zakharov, and they spend a lot of time together. After many sessions, Zakharov and Anora seem to fall in love as Anora leaves her old life behind. When word gets out to Zakharov's rich and powerful parents back in Russia about the marriage, they are outraged and send people to forcefully annul the marriage. This prompts an insane chase through New York to stop the marriage from being annulled before Zakharov's parents get their way. I will say, this was the strangest film I have seen in a while. It was over the top in multiple ways, extremely vulgar, and of course full of sex worker representation from start to finish. The theme of the film was how intimacy can be both physical or extremely emotional and bonding for the main character, and that's all I can say without spoiling the film too much. The first half of the film was very interesting as it was extremely fast-paced with various shots of partying, drugs, sex, and alcohol. As things seemed to die down, the second half of the film became super serious really quickly. The main message of the film became very clear through lengthy scenes of arguing, screaming, some fights, and unexpected bonding. I was not expecting the ending at all; however, it did make sense the more I think about it, and it fits Anora's character arc very well, but it was an emotional and sometimes quite intense ride. The film makes the audience feel so many emotions all at once: laughter, pain, anger, and love at some points, but the real star of the film was the writing and Mikey Madison's performance. The writing in this film, the second half especially, was worthy of the Oscar win for sure. The dialogue during the lengthy arguing scenes was done really well, and it felt super emotional instead of distant or corny, and Mikey Madison did really well to portray the emotions she had to. I will admit, some parts of the second half felt a bit slow, but it wasn't too bad, and the decent cinematography throughout also helped move things along. I did have the amazing opportunity to see this movie on 35mm film, a rare film format in which the entire movie was scanned and developed onto 35mm film to be displayed at a 5k resolution. The flickering, film grain, and the visuals that come with seeing a movie like this on film felt really immersive and just cool to watch, and there were many scenes with great cinematography that benefited from the film format. I had to go to an art house theater (The Tara Theater in Atlanta) to see this, but I recommend it highly for anyone trying to see this film in its true format that Sean Baker recommends. A lot of people have also asked me if this film deserved Best Picture, and to be quite honest, I don't think so. This film was fresh and innovative and had an unusual theme that worked throughout the film itself, however compared to The Brutalist specifically I think it doesn't hold. The Brutalist had little to no issues in the film, whereas Anora had some pacing issues as I mentioned before. I do encourage people to go watch this film regardless of that opinion, since it is a good movie (I did warn you it is strange though) and has a refreshing story and message, but expect an emotional roller coaster!