Anora (2024)

Plot of Anora: Anora, who liked to be known as Ani, works in a club in Brooklyn, where young woman engage in a form of dry humping with men, while clad in almost nothing. But when Vanya engages her for her services they get on well, and Ani  is encouraged to go a bit further with him. He asks her to be his girlfriend for a week and she agrees, moving in to the palatial residence which actually belongs to his parents. Impulsively Vanya asks her to marry him, and when she agrees they fly to Las Vegas and carry out the ceremony. But Vanya’s activities are monitored and reported to his minder Toros, who is involved in a christening, but abandons it and goes to the house with his assistants, Igor and Garnik. They are unable to stop Vanya from running away, but capture Anora and bully her into agreeing to have the marriage annulled. Then they dash about Brooklyn chasing after Vanya, desperate to catch him and sort out the marriage business before the parents fly in from Russia in their private jet.

Content: There is a lot of nudity semi-nudity, erotic activities and sex, which if described in detail, would be a bit more pornographic than the actual scenes in the film. There are many scenes in nightclubs with sex workers doing their stuff and once Vanya and Ani get together, sex in the mansion except when Vanya is playing computer games. Once the Russian minders get involved the situation becomes comic as they try to sort things out before the parents arrive in their jet from Russia. There is mayhem in the mansion and out in the area, and even though Ani agrees with the divorce, it turns out that they have to go to Las Vegas because that was where the ceremony had been carried out. The mother is fearsome and the father is amused.  There might be romance, but not as you would expect.

A View: We were encouraged to go and see this movie after it swept the board at the Oscars, and sure enough it was pretty good. It seems likely that its winning streak was encouraged by the fact that it was an extremely low budget outing filmed in 37 days, using only the environment of an area of Brooklyn which is known as a sort of Russian hinterland. The scenes in the clubs are in the actual clubs and so on, and one scene in a restaurant used the actual diners in it. But it is a good film, which you might have to go to see in the cinema since it could be a bit over the top for cable.

Fun Fact: For those who count the number of times the f word has been used, this film is fifth with 517 times.