Blair Loveday
After Anora won a bunch of awards I decided it was worth checking out, but I decided the most fun way would be to go in blind. Well, now with it released on 4K, that seemed like the best way, and it was.
Anora is a very strange movie. It kicks off as we meet Anora, or Ani as she prefers, is a stripper. A young man, Vanya, comes into the club requesting a woman that speaks Russian and so he is assigned Ani. They have a great time together, and so he hires her for a week exclusively. It turns out Vanya is the son of some rich Russian oligarchs who sent him to the US for education.
Anyway, when out partying, Vanya makes a spur of the moment decision to take his friends and Ani to Vegas to keep partying. While there he decides to propose to Ani, and they get married on the spot. Well this information manages to make it back to Vanyas parents, and some of their contacts have to track them down and undo this mess.
A lot of this movie involves Ani and Vanya’s parents' contacts trying to track down Vanya who does a runner as soon as he realizes his parents know. There are elements of comedy including a few moments where I actually laughed out loud. The bulk of the time though it is more of a thrilling drama as they try to pick apart the mess Vanya has made.
One of the things I struggled with on the journey was the sheer volume of unlikeable people.
From the contacts sent by Vanya’s parents, to Vanya, to eventually meeting the parents themselves. The movie really wants to emphasize how different people can be awful. Vanya starts off as a bit of a silly fun spoiled rich kid. As the movie goes on we see him become a coward not wanting to see the consequences of his actions, through to him showing his true entitled piece of crap behaviour.
Another thing the movie does really well is showing a lot of the everyday people and their consequences as they service the rich. We get cleaners who are trying to clean up around them when they are chilling in the house playing video games, through to coming in to clean up the mess caused by Vanya doing his runner. When they are going through businesses looking for Vanya we see a lot of the staff being impacted as they try to do their jobs but have to deal with the powerful people in front of them.
In hindsight it really tells an excellent story of the power of the rich and its impact on everyday people. The majority of the people in the movie are those impacted, and the higher they are up in the chain the nastier they can be. Even the awful things they do, is clearly shown to be done through fear of the consequences from the rich. The most likeable person is one of the thugs who is new in the role and the poorest of the group.
Anora isn’t a fun movie, even if there is fun to be had. Some light comedy moments make it easier to sit through the deep thoughts you will have as you watch this journey. It’s an excellent movie if you go in with an open mind and are ready to receive the message the movie wants to tell you. It is definitely something I will return to so I can see if I pick up anything else new as there is a lot of depth here.
