#i think that barry doesn't do a lot of introspection or thinking

[zincbot]

barry syx is fucking hilarious but he keeps making me sad

[zalrb]

Anora (2024) Review

OK! Since a few anons have asked for an Anora review.

I'm still unsure of whether or not I liked the movie to be honest, but at the very least I could say I found it funny.

In terms of Ani and her character, I understand the people who think she was poorly written and I understand the people who think that she was given substance.

There are definitely choices made throughout to showcase how she's viewed and how she's treated and how she presents herself to make a living, like the fact that we don't really hear her speak during her week with Ivan, like you hear his friends speak, Crystal speaks more than Ani speaks during that week and it's because Ani's not there to speak, she's there to be The Horny Girlfriend, even when they toast her, she doesn't really say anything. Her Role is To Be Ornamental

and she's actually quite reserved compared to everyone else during these escapades, it's her job to present like she's having fun but she's quiet and she smiles at the appropriate times, but she doesn't make any remarks, she isn't really letting loose, she is not One of Them

and when she does speak, it's in her Customer Service Voice but there are moments where we see reflection and actually see discomfort with Ivan's behaviour and excess. Like when he gambles away however much money

or how awkward and uncomfortable she is when Klara is vacuuming around them

there are other things like Ani having a butterfly on her finger

Butterflies symbolize transformation, hope, freedom, good fortune, and these are things that she thinks she finally acquired with Ivan at the beginning of the movie, that he made her believe she acquired only to realize basically a big joke to him to piss off his mother by the end

and the viewer actually does see a transformation in Ani; it's just that it's not an overhaul of her personality, it's a peeling back of what her personality actually is, she isn't playing a Role during the quest to find Ivan, she's herself, this is how Ani actually speaks, this is how Ani actually carries herself

which we get glimpses of in the back room at HQ, her voice changes, her facial expressions change when she's actually communicating without a facade

At the end, she's referred to as a "night butterfly"

and a cursory look at Google (so it might not be right, I didn't do any real research on this) says that in Russian/Slavic folklore a night butterfly is a swamp spirit that "takes a form of a beautiful woman and then visits men in their dreams, torturing them with desire, and dragging life out of them", which again can show how Ani sees herself and how others, namely men, view her.

And there are things you could probably draw parallels with -- she wants her honeymoon to be at Disney World because it's been this dream since childhood, it's framed like it's been unattainable, compared to Ivan who has never had to grow up and is an overgrown, selfish, weak-willed boy.

So, there's all of that, which I believe adds complexity to the character, particularly because I don't think the other characters are more fleshed out than her or anything like that. At the same time, I can understand wanting more from Ani's writing, wanting a little more introspection from her, not necessarily wanting to see how she got to where she was, or more about her home life, but more about how she was convinced of Ivan's sincerity, I can understand that.

For me, the most I felt Sean Baker's maleness behind the camera is actually when Ani beats up Igor and Garnic because I find that male directors or writers do this a lot -- it's meant to be this kind of reversal of the damsel where the female character is this force and the ostensibly bigger, taller, physically stronger men around her are just so inept when it comes to overpowering her, it's kind of like Emma Watson in This is The End

or even that feral child in Barry

but it's usually done in a way that's clumsy to me and that's done for comedic effect like "haha, could you even imagine?" like the inherent tone of the sequence is that the scenario is just so bizarre and so the sequence ends up feeling either patronizing or (obviously not in the case of Barry) kind of like a fantasy/male gaze-y, which I think is also because the men aren't framed as actual threats, they just want to make her feel comfortable or they just have a job to do and it's this huge misunderstanding that we're meant to find funny because of the optics of what's going on.

So, I felt that with those scenes. At the same time, there were a lot of funny lines and great comedic deliveries throughout it.

Sean Baker always has great shots in his movies, my favourites were the ones at Coney Island

I think Mikey Madison was good in it, I think she switched between her persona and her personality quite well. I think she riffed with the others really well, the dynamics between all four of them were fun.

Anything else, you can send asks and we can discuss because this is already monstrously long :)