Tragedy or comedy? Palme d’Or winner Anora courts Oscars buzz

The two films share a similar starting point – a rich man hires a beautiful prostitute – but Anora does what Pretty Woman thought about, but pulled back from.

The frenetic drama Anora has been compared with Pretty Woman.

The frenetic drama Anora, written and directed by American filmmaker Sean Baker, has been compared with Pretty Woman, the 1990 smash hit starring Richard Gere as a New York corporate raider and Julia Roberts as a Hollywood hooker.

The two films share a similar starting point – a rich man hires a beautiful prostitute – but Anora does what Pretty Woman thought about but pulled back from.

It is not a romantic comedy.

How that plays out commercially time will tell. I doubt the people behind Pretty Woman regretted the decision to go soft, given the movie cost $US14m to make and earned almost $US500m.

Critically speaking, Anora won the main prize, the Palme d’Or, at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. It is being talked about as an Academy Awards contender. The Oscar nominations will be announced on January 17.

The title character, Anora (Mikey Madison), is a stripper at a club in a Brooklyn, New York, neighbourhood that has a high Russian population. She’s 23, calls herself Ani and has some Russian heritage herself.

“This is not allowed but I like you,’’ she tells a new client, Ivan Zakharov (Russian actor Mark Eydelshteyn), as she ups the physicality in a ­private strip room. He’s 21, calls himself Vanya and responds “God bless America.”

He is the son of a Russian oligarch. He’s in New York to study but he and his Russian friends spend the whole time partying hard. The exploration of what it’s like to be a mega-rich young Russian, someone for whom the cost of anything is irrelevant, is one of the fascinating aspects of the film.

He pays Ani $US15,000 to be his girlfriend for a week. They have lots of sex, snort nosefuls of drugs, jet to Las Vegas in a private plane, and tie the knot. “We’d have a great time even if I didn’t have money,’’ he tells her. I don’t think she, who lives a transactional life, believes that.

Their marriage sets up the film proper.

Vanya’s parents, back in Russia, are apoplectic. They alert their New York-based Armenian henchman, Toros (Armenian actor Karren Karagulian), who deploys two heavies, his brother Garnick (Armenian actor Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Russian actor Yura Borisov).

The plan is to round up Vanya and Ani and have the marriage annulled. This proves harder to achieve than expected because Vanya is a spoiled brat and Ani is a take-no-shit woman.

“What happened here?’’ Toros asks when he arrives at Vanya’s torn-apart luxury apartment ands sees his henchman not in control of Ani. “She happened,’’ Garnick replies.

What unfolds over the next two hours or so is a frantic game of cat and mouse that shifts between intimidation, rationalisation and co-operation. Everyone is in each other’s faces, talking over each other all the time.

Indeed the film I thought of as I watched was the 2022 Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All At Once. It is so full on, so uncontrolled that I wanted it to slow down, just for a moment.

This, however, is not a Pretty Woman fairy tale so it’s fasten the seat belt and hold on for the ride around sharp bends and over deep potholes.

The director’s previous film, the 2021 black comedy Red Rocket, centres on a male porn star who’s past his best. Anora is a grittier experience. All the performances are impressive and I will not be surprised if Madison receives an Oscar nomination.

For this viewer, it’s Borisov as the quietly spoken Igor who grows into the most intriguing character. The final 15 minutes or so, in which he features alongside Ani, is the highlight of the film and, I think, explains why Ani’s story, however it ends, is a tragedy not a comedy.

Anora (MA15+)

In English and Russian with English subtitles
139 minutes
In cinemas

★★★½