ANORA (2024) - MIKEY MADISON LIGHTS UP THE SCREEN IN SEAN BAKER'S LATEST, A MAINSTREAM BREAKTHROUGH BUT NOT HIS BEST FILM

              

Greetings All - Hope this day finds you well, it's certainly movie watching weather we're having in California. Sean Baker's latest is yes, another great film, but falls ever so short of the indie excellence found in Starlet or The Florida Project. Personally, I think his last film, Red Rocket is better but either way we're huge fans of his work. I'm glad to see him hit the mainstream but hope he will keep up his awesome standards. 

Anora has the thumbprints of a lot of his other work - it takes place in the adult entertainment industry and deals with characters normally ousted in society. As you probably know, Madison plays a stripper in one of those Spearmimt Rhino kind of places and starts to befriend a client, a Russian spoiled brat of a kid who treats his whole life like he's on spring break. Things heat up fast between them (this is a Sean Baker film after all ha ha ) and they get married. Turns out though he's the son of an important Russian official who's not too happy that his son just married a "prostitute" and sends his goonbahs out to annul the marraige. 

Madison is great, such a terrific actress, loved her in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. She carries this film like a star running back on a 99 yard return touchdown. I have no idea who the Russian kid is but he's perfectly cast. Armenian actor Karren Karagulian who was so good in Baker's Tangerine is cast in a big part here as the heavy dispatched by his family to try and annul the marraige. An excellent performance once again from him here although there's one or two scenes where he's just a little out of his depth. 

All in all, I'm going to bring Anora in at a solid 4 stars but this is one of my lowest ratings for his films. However, it's still Sean Fu*king Baker!, so go see it. Lol, currently VOD but on sale right now for only 9.99 on both Vudu and Amazon.    4.0 stars/5