Movie Review: Anora

In one of the most surprising and unexpected results in Oscar History the movie "Anora" won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Film Editing, matching a record previously held by Walt Disney.

From the publication Wrap.pro: "Anora's big triumph felt like less of a surprise and more of a crescendo to a campaign that started almost a year ago and had finally reached its natural conclusion. What makes this particular success story so staggering is how deliberate and methodical it was, as distributor Neon closely followed its own playbook — one that led Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” to historic Oscar success five years ago. Add in a deliberate decision to keep “Anora” off of streaming for the duration of its awards run, and you get a path to Oscar glory."

As with the horrible Oscar winner "Everything Everywhere All At Once" (2022), Anora is the most recent example of the Oscar awards being rigged by a marketing campaign, that kept the best two movies for 2024, "A Complete Unknown" or the "Brutalist" from winning best picture.

From ChatGP": "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013) holds the record for one of the highest uses of the F-word in a feature film. The word is used 569 times throughout the movie, averaging about 2.81 times per minute. This count makes it one of the most profanity-laden films in cinematic history." For the movie Anora, the F word is used 479 times, with the screenwriter and director Sean Baker most likely aguing: "This is now people in this world talk". While this is a correct statement, this many F words are not necessary, over a two-hour movie, and seems more overkill than a screenwriter trying to be accurate with dialogue.

This story is about a young woman in her early 20s named Anora, played by Mikey Madison, who has no options to make a living, other than being employed in the sex worker industry. This includes working in a strip club, giving lap dances, and in some cases selling her body for sexual encounters. For any young woman who has a horrible life like this, constantly putting herself in danger of being beaten or murdered, with a suicide rate in the United States that is as high as 18% higher than the general population, this kind of reality can be more like like a slow death, than living.

Through a typical lap dance and conversations with a young Russian man, Ivan played by Mark Eydelshteyn, their relationship grows into a friendship and then a marriage in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, Ivan's parents are the head of a crime gang that sells weapons, and they do not approve of their son marrying someone they consider a prostitute. There are so many sex scenes between Ivan and Anora, that this movie at times can seem like a softcore porn movie, another example of over-the-top movie making trying to be different.

There is a huge fight scene that lasts at least 15 minutes in the middle of this film, where the Russian criminals employed by this gun-running company attack both Ivan and Anora in a mansion owned by Ivan's parents. The fight in the mansion is violent with Anora screaming and struggling as she is finally bound and gagged. Her constant screaming becomes a major low point in this movie and like her never-ending F-words, is overkill. During the fight, Ivan runs away, and for a far too long period within this story, the Russian criminals and Anora later try to find Ivan, so that Ivan and Anora can get their marriage annulled.

As impossible as it is to believe that this movie won the Best Picture Oscar for 2024, there is no doubt that the acting is very good by all the actors, especially Mikey Madison. This movie succeeds in painting a picture of a young woman in her 20s trying to stay alive within an unbearable reality with an ending in a car with Mikey and one of the Russian criminals who kidnapped her, that summarizes Anora's entire terrible life with a perfectly shot small scene.

There is no way that this picture should have received the Best Oscar and Original Screenplay Oscar for 2024, or received a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, but while never recommending this for children or anyone who hates nonstop foul language - because of the excellent acting only - I do recommend this film.