Bronze - Anora
Oscar Tidbit: Made Oscar history in 2025, winning 5 out of its 6 nominations—including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Screenplay. The only category it missed? Best Supporting Actor.
As much as I loved the film, even I have to admit—it might’ve been a bit much. Still, let’s be honest: better than Oppenheimer.
Anora is a fairy tale of sorts—a film that defies genre conventions. It’s not quite a romance, not quite a comedy, not fully a drama either. Instead, it’s a gritty, genre-bending story about flawed, complex people. At its center is Anora—or Ani (played by Mikey Madison)—a tough, street-smart stripper and sex worker from Brooklyn. She meets Ivan, or “Vanya,” the dumb and reckless son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. Vanya is goofy, impulsive, and shielded by the privilege of endless wealth. The two fall into a whirlwind relationship that quickly escalates into marriage. Ani’s dream appears to come true: she’s young, in love, and now rich.
On the surface, it might seem like a modern-day Cinderella story. Ani comes from nothing, while Vanya has everything handed to him. But this fairy tale has grime under its glitter. The film constantly undermines the fantasy with reality, revealing the fragility of Ani’s newfound happiness. Director Sean Baker once again focuses on characters living on the margins of society. Like in The Florida Project and Tangerine, Baker shines a light on the lives of sex workers, immigrants, and those living in poverty—not in a way that feels voyeuristic or sentimental, but deeply human and empathetic. His lens is one of understanding rather than judgment, offering space for his characters to simply exist in all their contradictions.
It’s hard to talk about Anora without veering into spoilers—so fair warning if you haven’t seen it yet. From early on, there’s an unshakable sense that something’s coming. That the dream won’t last. And sure enough, the illusion shatters: Ani realizes that she was just a fleeting amusement to Vanya, a plaything in his world of excess. Despite the marriage and moments of connection, Ani meant nothing to him. He disappears the moment things get complicated, leaving her to deal with the consequences.
As Russian henchmen swoop in to “fix” the situation, the film takes a tonal shift—leaning into absurdity and a slightly comedic caricature. These moments almost feel out of place, as if we’ve stepped into another movie entirely, but maybe that’s the point: Ani’s life has become someone else’s farce. By the end, the fairy tale is thoroughly dismantled. Ani is left back where she started—no riches, no love, no rescue. The film’s final, haunting truth is this: no one is coming to save her.
