Anora

publish Part of a series on Movies I’ve seen.

First watched this on 2025-05-25. I really liked it.

Overall take

I loved this film, for a few reasons:

• Spans a bunch of genres (romance, dark comedy, Breakfast Club/Scooby-Doo style squad adventure story)
• Individual scenes were directed super well
  • All actors played their roles flawlessly IMO
  • The scenes were so organically chaotic. The screenplay must have required sooo much coordination.
  • Lots of nice long shots.

Individual things I liked

I feel like I developed a mental map of the major environments (Vanya’s house, Headquarters).

• The only other film I can recall doing this for me is Parasite, which I also loved.

The Scooby gang-type interaction with Nikolai’s henchmen was hilarious.

• There were such good running gags that draw out the chemistry in the characters. Like:
  • Igor tying up Anora so she doesn’t wreck the house.
  • Garnik exclaims “are you crazy?? Untie her.” ⇒ gets kicked
  • Toros exclaims “are you crazy?? Untie her.” ⇒ she runs and needs to be gagged
• Anora kicking Garnik, who over the course of the next hour+ in the film:
  • Realizes his nose is broken
  • Complains in the car that he needs a hospital
  • Throws up in the car (probable concussion)
  • Develops a visible black eye and bruising
  • Becomes delirious and gets ignored despite definitely having some sort of brain damage
• Toros alluding to the crazy shit Vanya has pulled in the past (but he never elaborates)

My favorite thing: the protracted ~20 min scene in Vanya’s house as we are introduced to the henchmen and their dynamics.

• I didn’t expect the scene to last that long
• But holy crap I didn’t want it to end, it was so funny to see the characters bicker.
• I think a key aspect that made it funny was being able to reasonably sympathize with every character in the room. They are all written very sympathetically.

Acting-wise: they picked the perfect cast.

• I was particularly impressed with Vanya’s switching between Russian and English in a very natural way.

Symbolism / discussion points

Is Vanya the only truly inconsiderate person in this whole film? Everyone else is just trying to get by, in their own way (except possibly Igor).

Is Igor the only truly considerate person in this whole film? Everyone else is just doing their jobs to get by (except Vanya).

It was kind of neat how Toros was pushing everyone to speed up the search with Anora dragging her feet. But as soon as Anora arrives at Headquarters, the Scooby gang needs to catch up with her as she storms upstairs, leading the search.

I typically watch my movies with subtitles. This film makes me ponder how I would have enjoyed it without subtitles on at all times. - I never missed a beat in neither English nor Russian, even when the character switch mid-conversation and back. - I never missed a side conversation (e.g. Toros chewing out Garnik for getting a ticket in the background, while the main plot progresses and the rest of the gang prepare to meet Vanya’s family)

Small gripe about the epilogue

In the final ~20 minutes of the film, Igor escorts Anora back to New York. I have mixed feelings about this epilogue because:

• On the one hand:
  • It fleshes out Anora’s character more.
  • She acts extremely guarded to the only person who has shown her kindness. Yet ultimately reciprocates a hint of kindness by giving Igor a blanket to sleep with downstairs.
  • She’s aware and unhappy with her relation to sex.
    • I interpreted the ring gift --> sex scene --> crying in the car scene as Anora grappling with her inability to accept kindness unconditionally. Returning Igor’s kindness with sex suggests that sex is Anora’s primary means of showing affection, which is pretty heartbreaking in the context of this film.
• On the other hand:
  • It doesn’t feel consistent with Igor’s character. At least not at the surface level.
  • Igor, up until this point, is painted to the audience as a short-spoken lackey who has a bit of a moral streak (e.g. gives Anora a scarf to keep her warm) but is ultimately just doing his job (e.g. he only had the scarf to begin with in case he needed to gag her with it).
    • More supporting evidence: In Vegas, Igor suggests Vanya apologize, but shrinks at the first sign of pushback. This seems like a character who is barely scraping by: he’s laboring on his birthday, driving his grandmother’s car, and keeps his head down in order to make ends meet.
  • So with this all said: it feels really weird to me that he’s so unbothered sitting on the couch with Anora ripping into him as he tries to express some words of comfort.
  • It’s established Vanya is 21 and Igor is 30. So it’s furthermore conceivable that Igor has been doing this job for a few years, and has bailed Vanya out of plenty shenanigans like the Anora situation before.
  • So again: it feels inconsistent that Igor is chill with one of Vanya’s girls tearing into him on his 30th birthday.
    • He’s beyond chill; he gives a $5k-10k ring to her, risking his job and a nice personal paycheck, despite Anora already receiving a $10k bribe.
  • It just feels unconvincing to me.
  • I feel the scene would be equally powerful and more believable had he not given her the ring.
• On the other hand:
  • The epilogue is a nice vignette into two poor characters recognizing each others’ helplessness, preparing to continue their mundane lives.
  • I might be overlooking some high context mannerisms, or Russian mannerisms, or something, that illustrates to a perceptive audience that these two characters were trading warmth through guarded language.
  • And then it would all make sense.