Anora

Dec 20, 2024  |  705 words  |  Movies 

The trials and tribulations of a 23-year-old exotic dancer from Coney Island are not the kind of thing that usually prompts me to buy a movie ticket.  But the new film Anora is a 2024 Palme d’Or winner that my wife and a close friend of hers decided we should go see, so off we went.  

The movie opens in a strip club, and I readily admit to enjoying the sight of nearly-naked women sauntering around as much as the next fellow.  It satisfies my prurient interest.  And it reminds me of the deep and abiding admiration I have for the wonderful job God did in creating the female form.

But instead of offering us a scene or two with a few provocative close-ups before moving on, the director leans in with an extended sequence of interaction between the attractive dancers and their average-Joe clientele, and between the individual working-girl, just-scraping-by dancers.  There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly revelatory in these encounters.  After about twenty minutes of this I found myself wondering out loud, “Is there a story here?”

Things only marginally improve once our heroine, Ani, settles on a young Russian with plenty of cash to burn.  He is smitten because she is of Russian descent herself and speaks a little of the language.  After a few nights as a run-of-the-mill regular customer, he asks Ani if she works “outside,” and she obliges him by starting to make house calls.  We get to watch Ani execute her standard strip-tease rituals by daylight, in the young man’s palatial and seemingly abandoned home.

Boredom was getting the better of me and I was on the verge of getting up and leaving, prepared to check out the feature playing in the theater next to ours.  Then things took a turn, as this scrawny lad surprises Ani (and us) by asking her to marry him.  

The pair continue their free-wheeling debauchery and along with a group of his friends take their non-stop partying to Vegas, where Ani and this goofy kid tie the knot.  He is so incredibly immature and she is so worldly in that gritty exotic dancer sort of way, we can’t wait to find out what comes next.

This loppy, 21-year-old is the spoiled son of a wealthy Russin oligarch and once news of the Las Vegas nuptials leak, the oligarch’s state-side henchmen/babysitters are deployed to talk some sense into their wayward young charge, and see to it this quickie marriage is just as quickly annulled.

Ani spends the rest of the movie vigorously rejecting the notion her marriage is not real, and her protestations are simultaneously entertaining, endearing and a bit delusional, since her newly-minted spouse suffers from a bad case of arrested development.  Maybe Ani can see this, too, but she can’t quite bring herself to admit it.

The movie is utterly believable, respects its characters, and avoids cliché.  For instance, once the henchmen come into the picture things do not take a violent turn, at least not in the conventionally ominous way.  Ani is actually the one who perpetrates what little violence there is, and in a comic twist the Russian henchmen/babysitters prove to be her victims.

The film also avoids sentimentality.  Towards the end, when Mr. and Mrs. Russian oligarch finally make an appearance, having rushed to the States in their private jet, there is a brief moment when I thought the high-class no-nonsense mother might take a shine to our scrappy little blue-collar exotic dancer, seeing in her a kindred spirit.  But the screenwriter had other, far more interesting ideas of how to bring this story home.

The final scene is quiet and unexpected and speaks volumes.  I don’t want to ruin it for you by giving my interpretation.  But if you want to drop me a line, I will be happy to share my thoughts.

As the screen went dark and the credits rolled to the sound of windshield wipers in the background, the same sound that served as the backdrop to that unique, wordless final scene, I was reminded of my one-line review of Saturday Night Fever from 1977.  To paraphrase that review, Anora may start out in the strip club, but it doesn’t end up there.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.

www.robertjcavanaughjr.com

bobcavjr@gmail.com

Tuesday (The Movie)

June 27, 2024  |  214 words  |  Movies  

It is the small quiet films where nothing much happens that seem to make the biggest impression on me.  These little projects earn next-to-nothing at the box office, so among other things I come away grateful that such trifles can still find a way to be financed and produced.

Tuesday is the latest such movie to land on my list of all-time favorites.  It is advertised as a meditation on mortality, so right away you know this is not going to be a summer blockbuster.

It is an intimate two-character chamber piece focusing on a daughter who is placid about her impending death due to a debilitating disease, and her mother who is not so placid about the coming loss.

Death is also physically represented in the form of a colorful macaw that can morph from very small to quite large, and is given to the occasional laconic remark.

The talking bird takes a little getting used to at first, but by the final act the viewer understands what the screenwriter is up to, and the parable-like device is employed to great effect in bringing this moving story to a satisfying conclusion.

Lola Petticrew plays the daughter, Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays the mother, and Diana Pusic wrote and directed, in her feature film debut.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.

www.robertjcavanaughjr.com

bobcavjr@gmail.com

The Nest

June 13, 2024  |  420 words  |  Movies  

With it being so hard to find something worthwhile to watch these days, even with all these choices, I wanted to give a shout out to a quiet little movie I streamed last night that was just what the doctor ordered.

The Nest was a theatrical release in 2020 and apparently did next-to-nothing at the box office, based on a simple Google search I did this morning.  That same internet search offers various review of the film, one of which describes it this way:

“The Nest is a rich, layered drama, the kind of quiet film sorely missed these days.  Thanks to career-best performances from Jude Law and Carrie Coon and Sean Durkin’s excellent direction.  The Nest is something truly special.”

I completely agree.  Here is more from that same review:

“Each scene of The Nest feels meaningful, even when there are very few words spoken; it’s a tense rich drama, the stuff of films from decades past.  There is a pivotal fight scene between Rory (Jude Law) and Allison (Carrie Coon) that feels like a trip to the theater, but I mean than in the best way possible; rather than cutting between close-ups or dramatic angles, the camera lets the actors do all the work.

“They get in each other’s faces, they fully react, they breathe and think and feel.  It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in recent memory, and it shows a deep trust from the filmmaker in the performers.  This is really the heart of The Nest, a film that doesn’t feel the need to dazzle or put on a display.

“At times, it almost feels like a series of increasingly tense vignettes, portraits of a family in crisis, of the way a series of small explosions leads to one nuclear in scale.  Every development feels wholly earned, and the last scene – not a particularly loud or crazy one, but perhaps my favorite in the film – is a quiet conclusion, though not necessarily a resolution, a quietly astonishing finale few filmmakers ever attempt (and those that do rarely get it right).”

I hope this does not spoil anything for you; this movie was so good I just had to share.  The only other thing I will say is this: The Nest may not be what you are looking for on a Friday or Saturday night.  But last night was Wednesday, and this movie was perfect for me in every way.

P.S.  The perceptive insights quoted above belong to Jade Budowski writing on the Decider web site.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.

www.robertjcavanaughjr.com

bobcavjr@gmail.com