![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/MV5BYThiN2M0NTItODRmNC00NDhlLWFiYTgtMWM2YTEyYzI3ZTY1XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_-203x300.jpg\")
By Steve Crum<\/p>\nBy Steve Crum<\/p>\n
Feature movies with a prostitute as the main character have existed for nearly a century. They include Anna Christie<\/i> with Greta Garbo, Rain<\/i> (Joan Crawford), Klute (Jane Fonda), Irma la Douce<\/i> (Shirley MacLaine), Pretty Woman<\/i> (Julia Roberts), and Midnight Cowboy<\/i> (Jon Voight).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Add Mikey Madison to that stellar list. Make that the Oscar nominated Mikey Madison. She memorably portrays the title character in Anora<\/i>. (The film has received five other Oscar noms as well, including Best Picture.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Anora is touted as an \u201cAmerican comedy drama,\u201d which indeed it is. It is also wild, raucous, and sexually explicit. Label it Super-R. The story opens in Anora (\u201cAni\u201d) Mikheeva\u2019s (Mikey Madison) main workplace, a strip club brothel in New York City. Her prostitution demands sometime take her and a client to a nearby location outside the club. That scenario occurs when she hooks up (yeah, a pun) with a Russian young man, Ivan (\u201cVanya\u201d) Zakharov, a man-child played by Mark The set-up escalates into a private plane trip to Las Vegas, more sex\u2026and marriage! They return to NYC, word gets out to Ivan\u2019s parents, and the outraged family calls on their hired fixer, an Armenian priest, to retaliate. In one of the funniest bits in the film Toros (Karren Karagulian), the head handler, is in the middle of a christening when he gets a call to dissolve Ivan and Anora\u2019s marriage. He immediately responds, running out of the ceremony and taking two of his strong arms with him: Igor and Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Much of Anora\u2019s dialogue is laced with foul language, particularly the f-word. In fact, her lines are a close runner-up to the nasties in 1992\u2019s Glengarry Glen Ross<\/i>. Then again, Anora\u2019s use seems totally natural and expected. She uses the word as both punctuation and angry leverage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n By the story\u2019s resolution, Anora has withstood numerous challenges. A happy ending? Not necessarily.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Up to and particularly including the last 30 minutes of this 139-minute gem of originality, I had zero idea where the story was going. Thusly, my affection for this terrific movie was a given.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n GRADE on an A-F Scale: A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Steve Crum Feature movies with a prostitute as the main character have existed for nearly a century. They include Anna Christie with Greta Garbo, Rain (Joan Crawford), Klute (Jane Fonda), Irma la Douce (Shirley MacLaine), Pretty Woman (Julia Roberts), and Midnight Cowboy (Jon Voight).\u00a0 Add Mikey Madison to that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3383,"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381\/revisions\/3383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Gfb_E48X0AAG7Y8-300x148.jpg\")
Everyone in the cast is way above average, including Yura Borisov as Igor. (He is an Oscar nom for Best Supporting Actor.) Sean Baker (The Florida Project<\/i>) is director, producer, screen scribe and editor\u2014all nominated. All said, the combination of that creativity results in a unique and unforgettable film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/8f436826-d5cb-4249-93f4-92871b2fcfb3_1500x1000-300x200.jpg\")
Eydelshteyn. After some horizontal activity in a back room at the club, Ivan insists Anora party with him for a week ($15,000) while staying in his rich parents\u2019 nearby mansion. Mom and Dad are still in Russia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crumonshowbiz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Anora-300x200.jpg\")
Be prepared for pushback from the newlyweds: screaming, threats, throwing things, tying up, barfing, a couple of car escapades, and general chaos. Everything escalates when the Russian parents arrive to make things worse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n