‘Anora’ Review: When an American Stripper and a Russian Heir Hook Up, It’s a Full-Blown International Crisis!

October 15, 2024

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Ani, are you okay? (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karaguilan, Vache Tovmasyan, Aleksei Serebryakov, Darya Ekamasova

Director: Sean Baker

Running Time: 139 Minutes

Rating: R for Stripping, Partying, Shtupping, and Maybe a Concussion or Two

Release Date: October 18, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Multilingualism is a skill that can help you get ahead in the workplace, but can also be taken advantage of for somewhat questionable purposes. Mikey Madison learns that the hard way as the title character of Anora, a loopy and tragic farce about a not-exactly-promising romance. Ani is a Brooklyn-born stripper who can speak Russian and does some high-end escorting on the side, which is how she hooks up with Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), a bratty Russian heir who’s looking to have some fun with a nice lady in between all the video games he plays at his mansion. Their dalliance leads to an impromptu wedding in Vegas, and just as it looks like Ani and Vanya can beat the odds, word gets back to his parents, who don’t exactly approve of what their boy has been up to. So then a group of handlers suddenly show up to rectify the situation, leading to an all-night odyssey through seemingly every Russian-speaking corner of the borough to settle this matter once and for all.

What Made an Impression?: Always an Adventure!: Perhaps you’ve heard the slogan “sex work is work,” which is generally meant to restore humanity and remove the stigma from a group of people who are often shamed and ostracized. The idea is to emphasize that everyone, no matter what they do for money, is just trying to get by like everyone else. But in the films of Sean Baker, the emphasis is more about how a sex worker’s life can be just as ridiculous as anybody else’s. Anora slots right into his typical m.o. with what is essentially Pretty Woman by way of the Coen brothers. It’s basically an increasingly absurd comedy of errors in which nobody really has any idea what they’re doing. At times, the chaos threatens to become so over-the-top that you might start to wonder if the Russian goons will have to fight Ron Burgundy and the rest of the Channel 4 News Team with fire and pitchforks.
The Promise of the Real: But as loopy as Anora is, it remains fastened to the rails of realism thanks to a series of performances that give off vibes like “Won’t you just let me do my job?” or “Can’t you just let me love who I love?” or “Won’t you just let me be me?” Madison anchors it all in what the entire world simply must accept is a star-making turn. If you’ve been anxiously awaiting for something like this after seeing her shine for five seasons as the oldest daughter on the FX sitcom Better Things, then your prayers have been answered. All of the supporting performers around her slot in with the appropriate amounts of cuckoo, unhinged, and/or harried. And WATCH OUT when Aleksei Serebryakov and Darya Ekamasova show up as Vanya’s mom and dad; if you only encounter one cinematic pair of disapproving Russian parents this year, you could do much worse than Nikolai and Galina. And keep a close eye on Yura Borisov, whose henchman character will keep you guessing. That brings me to another classic mark of a Sean Baker movie: it features plenty of interesting people.

Anora is Recommended If You Like: The vicarious thrill of watching other people getting up to misadventures while staying up all night

Grade: 4 out of 5 Annulments

‘Red Rocket’ Puts It All on Display, and To That I Say: ‘Okay!’

December 8, 2021

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Red Rocket (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Simon Rex, Suzanna Son, Bree Elrod, Brenda Deiss, Judy Hill, Brittany Rodriguez, Ethan Darbone, Shih-Ching Tsou, Marlon Lambert

Director: Sean Baker

Running Time: 128 Minutes

Rating: R for Getting Physical

Release Date: December 10, 2021 (Theaters)

Adult entertainment – or “pornography,” if you will – has become much more democratized and much less stigmatized in this here 21st century. And overall, I think as a society we’re better off for these developments. Greater openness means that the people who have been involved in the industry are much less likely to find their livelihoods ruined by alienation and/or abuse. Instead, they’re more likely to be seen as the human beings that they are. And that’s certainly the truth in Red Rocket, the latest from the very humanistic writer-director Sean Baker.

This is the down-and-out saga of Mikey Saber (Simon Rex), a formerly bigshot porn star who’s squandered whatever fortune he once had, so he takes the bus back to his sleepy Texas hometown and tries to weasel his way back into living with his estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) and mother-in-law Lil (Brenda Deiss). The ladies initially want nothing to do with him, but he wins them over when he starts to make plenty of bank selling weed. Meanwhile, he’s looking for an angle to get back in front of the camera. The best plan he can come up with for doing that is by romancing the local teenage donut store cashier, who everybody calls by her nickname Strawberry (Suzanna Son). The age of consent in Texas is 17, so Mikey’s in the clear legally, but he’s transgressing pretty much every other ethical consideration. And yet despite everything, I found myself hoping that things would work out for him.

A lot of that has to do with the pitch-perfect casting of Rex, whom you might remember as a 90s MTV VJ or for playing Dorkus Supremes in the Scary Movie flicks. (He also even had his own short-lived pornography career when he was struggling for cash in his much younger days.) His specialty is underdogs who endure the full weight of the cosmos hilariously crashing into them, and yet they hop right back up smiling and ready to take it all again. A lot of Mikey’s tragedy is of his own making, but he still has that same never-say-die Rex-ian energy.

Objectively, I can’t approve of about 75% of what Mikey does in Red Rocket. Indeed, I can’t approve of how close he gets to Strawberry, even if she is genuinely charmed by him. Nor can I approve of the way he yanks Lexi hither and thither; she’s hardly perfect herself, but nobody deserves a runaround like that from their spouse, estranged or otherwise. And I certainly can’t approve of the way he abandons his neighbor in one crucial climactic moment that blows up the whole story. And yet, I still want to know: what’s next for Mikey Saber?

Red Rocket is Recommended If You Like: “Bye Bye Bye,” Pop culture footnotes, The underdog

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Strawberries

This Is a Movie Review: ‘The Florida Project’ is a Portrait of Life on the Edge Just Outside the Sunshine State’s Tourist Meccas

October 4, 2017

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CREDIT: Marc Schmidt/A24

This review was originally posted on News Cult in October 2017.

Starring: Brooklyn Kimberly Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe, Valeria Cotto, Christopher Rivera

Director: Sean Baker

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Rating: R for Constant Potty Mouth, a Few Scrapes, Discreet Sex That Doesn’t Stay Hidden, and An Impromptu Use of a Tampon

Release Date: October 6, 2017 (Limited)

I have frequently wondered how people with a thin personal economic safety net stake their place in the world. It’s such a different life than I know that it might as well be on a separate plane of existence entirely. But it is not absolutely foreigg. We all do what we must to survive, and we’re all wired to find fun where and when we can. But there are certain realities of a capitalist society that make any sense of a satisfactory life illusory. I firmly, theoretically, believe that material possessions are not the ultimate source of happiness, but I recognize that in practice, lack of material goods is the cause of a lot of hardship. The Florida Project is a portrait of such an existence, and thus it is a stressful watch, though I am happy to have seen it.

The marketing for The Florida Project is a lot more unfailingly happy-go-lucky than the actual film. The trailer and poster are not outright lies, as indeed a group of cute little kids do run around having the time of their lives and Willem Dafoe is more adorably gruff than hardass grump. But an overarching grim context is inescapable. Perhaps there is a concerted point in putting the film’s peppiest step forward, as it takes place in Kissimmee, Florida, not too far from Orlando. Head beyond that city’s tourist mecca, and you might just be a little less inclined to still call this land “the happiest place on Earth.”

The Magic Castle Motel may be a purposeful misnomer intended to lure in a few gullible tourists and also self-delude its longtime residents, but try telling that to 6-year-old Mooney (Brooklyn Kimberly Prince) and her best friends Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Jancey (Valeria Cotto). Mooney knows that she and her mom Halley (Bria Vinaite) don’t exactly have a lot of money (that is, when they have any at all), but she still knows how to spend a hell of a day, like by sneaking around an abandoned building or scrounging up cash for ice cream (by pretending to have asthma that can only be relieved by ice cream). And hey, soliciting secondhand goods in a hotel parking lot with Mom is a lot of fun, too!

But when The Florida Project delves into the less savory ways in which Halley gets by, it’s a little harder to say that everything is copacetic. Questions that society really needs to grapple with become to impossible to ignore. When living in poverty is so expensive, how can you expect a young adult on waiting lists for every legitimate job not to turn to illegal ventures? And when those ventures become serious enough for social services to get involved, is the best solution really removing a child from a loving, non-abusive parental relationship? A lot of this grappling within the narrative falls upon motel manager Bobby (Dafoe in a role tailor-made for him), who is alternately a father figure, taskmaster, guardian angel, and just human. Written all over the lines of his face is the thesis of the film: this is all too intense to fully make sense of, but someone (but really, everyone) needs to live in it.

The Florida Project is Recommended If You Like: American Honey, A Little Princess, Boyhood

Grade: 4 out of 5 Cussing Kids