Bracingly original and deliriously funny Anora is ‘must-see movie of summer’
Showcasing an incredible new acting talent, ‘must-see’ Anora provokes genuine fascination and outright curiosity, writes Leigh Paatsch.
Leigh Paatsch
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If 2024 disappointed at the cinema, this year kicks off with seriously arresting and deliriously funny ’must-see’, a vampire remake of sorts, and the return of a humble family favourite.
ANORA (MA15+)
Director: Sean Baker (The Florida Project)
Starring: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn
Rating:★★★★★
Deliriously in love, or dangerously out of luck?
If you really, truly love movies, you will genuinely be glad to have waved farewell to 2024.
That was not a champagne year for cinema. Yes, there were good movies every so often, but legitimately great movies were near impossible to find.
Therefore die-hard tragics who still believe in the magic of the big screen should drop everything and book themselves a ticket to Anora ASAP.
This bracingly original, seriously arresting and deliriously funny affair has to be marked down as the one true must-see movie of the summer.
For much of its running time, Anora provokes genuine fascination and outright curiosity: while you don’t know where it is heading, you do know you will want to be there when it finally arrives.
(Without giving anything away, Anora’s ultimate destination is a closing scene which will surely stand as one of the best endings in recent memory.)
Oh, and just top it all off, Anora showcases an incredible new acting talent in the feisty form of its principal player, Mikey Madison. In what is, remarkably, her first leading role, Madison achieves absolute performance perfection. The next Best Actress Oscar is hers to lose.
The story told by Anora puts Julia Roberts’ Pretty Woman in a blender with Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. The resulting concoction is not just more flavoursome than expected, it is downright addictive.
When we first meet her, Madison’s title character is a semi-pro stripper in her mid-20s, getting paid by the minute to wiggle and grind seductively in a skeezy New York dance club.
One fateful evening, Anora lands the long-term client she did not know she was looking for. His name is Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). He is a little younger than Anora, but a hell of a lot richer. Ivan’s father is a Russian billionaire.
A companionship of – umm, how to put this politely? – commercial convenience gradually blossoms into something else. Inside of a week of their first meeting, Anora and Ivan are married.
It is during the second week of this curious couple’s acquaintance that the movie’s real brilliance confidently comes to the fore.
Ivan’s parents are on their way to America to deploy divorce proceedings on behalf of their sheltered son. To hold the fort until they get there, some dubious Armenian enforcers are dispatched to make sure the family fortune remains safe from Anora’s clutches.
There is much more going on within Anora’s openly amusing, yet shrewdly observed screenplay than can be mentioned here.
The movie’s biggest asset is the ability to spring the element of surprise repeatedly. See it as cold as you can, and a heatedly entertaining (and later, subtly moving) experience awaits.
Anora is now showing in general release
NOSFERATU (M)
Rating:★★★
General release
This richly atmospheric mood piece is a remake of sorts of the 1922 silent classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. Respected writer-director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Northman) has been urgently itching to take a crack at this for his entire career. However, his work often switches to a cryptic stealth mode where not a lot appears to be happening.
Just like the old movie, Nosferatu stands as a devious remix of the original Dracula legend penned by author Bram Stoker. The dreaded vampiric villain in this telling of the tale is the gruesomely unhinged Count Orlok (a spectacularly unrecognisable Bill Skarsgard). Not satisfied with dominating the dreams of the demure 1830s heroine Ellen (a committed Lily-Rose Depp), the proudly undead Orlok steps out of the shadows to claim this pure-hearted newlywed as his own.
When Eggers finally loosens the screws and unleashes the macabre bursts of supernatural malice many were hoping for, the movie more than pays its way as a quality chiller. However, a level of patience must be extended that could be a deal-breaker for some.
Co-stars Nicholas Hoult, Willem Dafoe.
PADDINGTON IN PERU (PG)
Rating:★★★½
General release
Has a humble family flick ever had tougher acts to follow than Paddington in Peru? Those first two Paddington movies rank among the finest all-ages fare produced this century. While this third instalment cannot match its widely praised predecessors for overall excellence, it’s still a cut above everything else on offer for younger audiences right now. With regular writer-director Paul King having moved on to other projects, the new movie does noticeably lack a certain creative flair. However, the irresistible charm of lil ol’ Paddington himself remains undiminished.
In what turns out to be a breezy, low-stakes adventure, Paddington and his British pals the Brown family head off to Peru to visit the young bear’s elderly Aunt Lucy. They think she needs some cheering up, but she actually requires serious tracking down, as it appears Aunt Lucy has disappeared somewhere deep in the Amazon.
The likes of an incorrigible riverboat captain (Antonio Banderas) and a silly singing nun (Olivia Colman) may prove to be of some help to the ensuing search, but it will come down to Paddington himself to put things right. A pleasingly diverting, if disposable addition to the series.
Co-stars Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer.
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