Anora
The first half of this film is very good. I feel like the about first half hour is the most Anora's character is actually explored. Then the film peaks for me in the next half hour of the film, the taking ivan and him running away and the house scene as a whole. It's so funny, and so good and the acting from Mikey Madison(although it was genuinely amazing in the entire movie) really peaks at that point for me.
The movie goes downhill for me once they finally get out the house and start looking for Ivan. The finding ivan scenes were meh, whatever, progress the story i guess. The(probably) worst scene of the movie was Anora going to HQ with the Russian guys, seeing Ivan with diamond literally getting a lap dance, and being.. just fine with it??? Like she's dead calm and talking to Ivan about his parents and how he needs to calm down? Like Anora the whole movie was built in a way, and then it all went down the trash when she reacted like that to Ivan literally cheating in front of her. It's not even like Ivan apologised or anything, he was just there chilling, acting as if this is completely normal, why wasn't Anora literally completely pissed? Why didn't she feels betrayed? And why the fuck was she still going on literally BEGGING Ivan to stay with her? That just seems, completely out of character, with absolutely no explanation, she saw Ivan cheat in front of her, not care about it, and she continued pleading with him. Makes zero sense, the movie went half a star down in that scene alone.
Ivan as a character was good himself though, total immature spoiled asshole, yea, nothing much to say, the actor was great and the character was pretty spot on.
Now to get to Igor, and Anora and their entire thing. Again, to me atleast, completely seems out of character for Anora. Like, she goes into whatever kinda relation she was in with Igor because of what exactly? Because Igor treated her normally, eventually? That too, i specify eventually, because no matter what the movie tries to tell you, in the house scene, Igor DEFINETELY assaulted Anora. And then Anora goes through that whole thing, and falls for Igor because he gave her a scarf and had small talk with her? Like what?
It felt Anora herself, despite the name of the movie, never really had any intentions, thoughts, or anything to do with herself really once the house scene finished. First she kept chasing around and begging Ivan even after he cheated, then she went into whatever with Igor after he assaulted her because he was nice to her.
Maybe this was some deep messaging by the director about that I'm not getting, but to me it just seems honestly a pretty bad thing, because from the movie to put it in the in a nice way, it just seems like Anora(and sex workers like that) seem pretty dumb. The movie may be about their dehumanisation, but the movie does exactly that itself.
Overall, a movie of two halves for me definitely. I think the film overall, it's story, is entertaining and easy to get invested in, but i think it does butcher the actual character of Anora herself in the second half, and the movie really feels less about her and more about.. anyone else really, Ivan, Igor, Ivan's parents, hell even the Baptist guy, take your pick, and for a movie literally named “Anora”, that can't happen. Half of my rating of this film is coming from Mikey Madison's generational acting performance.