Anora

Writing this review feels like walking a tightrope. I don’t want to be more critical than this movie deserves, but I don’t want to give it all the credit it has already received without necessarily deserving it, either. If that sounds a bit twisted, you can say the same thing about this film, too. It begins like a study of today’s shallow, licentious, wastrel youth, meaning that it has little appeal…and then, weirdly, it turns into a Three Stooges movie. The comedic turn in the film’s middle third is legitimately funny stuff, and I’m even willing to believe that that was the filmmaker’s intention—but that’s a hard sell given the seeming earnestness of the story’s other two thirds, particularly the latter part of the proceedings. And the denouement, which feels like it is intended to be a surprise, is in reality telegraphed throughout the story. I also get a sense that there is some sort of political statement that undergirds the tale and its view of the characters and their lives, which would probably explain the film’s success at the Oscars…because I can’t explain that strictly on the merits. Mix it together and you get yet another of those flicks that come along and get heaps of praise and bundles of awards, but then are largely forgotten after a few turns of the calendar. (Moonlight, anyone? The Artist?) If that sounds like your gig, then roll with this one and enjoy. But everyone else out here in audience land? This one is probably a “Nyet.”