Despite The Oscar Buzz, Anora Falls Flat
Anora is getting some buzz for Best Picture, so I decided to roll through to see what all the fuss is about. I had never heard of it until yesterday. The trailer is interesting and it's directed by Sean Baker who is hot in the streets after The Florida Project.
This movie was interesting for the first 45-60 minutes and definitely had some potential. It's a modern day Pretty Woman but in the second half of the movie, it tries and fails, to be Marriage Story.
The movie was 2 hours and 19 minutes and it would've been a solid film if it was an hour and 19 minutes. But they just dragged the story so much. They even included almost unnecessary loopholes to almost draw it out longer.
And I get it, they are trying to raise the level of pain of Ani as she goes through this awful situation. But while it may add a little more color to the story, I would've appreciated a little artistic liberties to avoid all the commotion and shorten this movie by an hour. The predictability of everything made it tired and led to the poor score. So while I certainly think Mikey Madison has a shot to win Best Actress, which would be will deserved, the movie itself shouldn't even be nominated for Best Picture as it wasn't even good.