My ★★½ review of Anora

The actors are game, but it never really rises above the tropey roots it pulls from, instead choosing to switch storytelling gears to simulate subversion.

Anora is fun. I’ll say that. After all the hype over these last few months, I will say that it’s a fun movie. Mikey Madison is fantastic playing her. However, the fun can only go so far, and there’s not a lot of movie around it. I found its structure pretty well done in its triptych-esque form, but for a film called Anora, it’s not really into developing her. It's superficially entertaining and crafts a thrill ride around several ideas of characters. The actors are game, but it never really rises above the tropey roots it pulls from, instead choosing to switch storytelling gears to simulate subversion.

I found the first act to be decent. The countless sex and dancing scenes were fine, if not lingering on for a bit too long. I didn’t find it very funny at this point or find the romance particularly appealing. The movie and the hype preceding it framed it as something I could see as brief and fleeting, so it felt long. Mark Edelstein is great, but after a while, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop on their relationship.

The second act (or at least what I think is the second act) was decent but also very dragged out. The screwball part was quickly the funniest to me. I enjoyed the…chaos building to the ‘fraud marriage’ line. However, at this point and throughout everything afterward, I got a bit exhausted with how much Anora went through and how long each scene spent on it. Why isn't there much reprieve for her, and why is what will be a traumatic experience for her in the future meant to be funny?

Afterward, the movie reaches its proper final form, going on a journey that reverses through the movie’s euphoric first act. I enjoyed this part and felt it came into its own. However, the writing is still thin for Anora as the focus keeps widening for the people around her. Yura Borisov was pretty good in this final stretch, but much of his character is just longing stares or brief bits of dialogue that I don’t find sufficient to make me care about him. I enjoyed the ride but was left wanting more of the movie and the characters. Which is odd considering how almost painfully long it ended up being.

The last like twenty minutes are alright. It’s nice to see the ending to such an entertaining story, but the story is also very, very long. At a certain point, I was just eagerly waiting for the car shot everyone couldn’t stop posting just so the movie could end. I find that last scene to be strange and gratuitous in composition. I appreciate its attempt to develop Anora finally, but it’s right before it cuts to black. It doesn’t feel like as big of a revelation or gag-worthy moment. It feels like the expected ending to a surface-level story about a character whose most exciting components are left hidden.

Anora, as previously mentioned, is an enjoyable movie. It’s highly entertaining and well-made in terms of camerawork. It's very visually appealing with great cinematography, which I already expect from Sean Baker. But it goes for entertainment and comedy over any natural substance or development. I finished the movie and left with many questions about the characters and story presented to me. The ambiguity didn’t add to the allure of the story; it just made it feel unfinished, which I found disappointing. I wanted to leave Anora ecstatically in love with it and as her as everyone else was. But you can’t fall in love with someone or something you don’t know or are not given the tools or information to fully understand.

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