Sean Baker‘s latest triumph is an Oscar frontrunner, and now finally the first trailer for “Anora” is here.
The highly-anticipated “Anora” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2024, and proved “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” breakout Mikey Madison is an actress to watch this awards season. Madison plays an exotic dancer and sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn).
Vache Tovmaysa, Yura Borisov, and Baker’s frequent collaborator Karren Karagulian.
The feature was the first American film to win the Palme d’Or since Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” in 2011.
Writer/director Baker previously helmed Oscar-nominated film “The Florida Project,” groundbreaking iPhone movie “Tangerine,” and Simon Rex’s career-best “Red Rocket,” which also centered on sex work.
“Anora” will be released by Neon, which handled the release of fellow Palme d’Or winners “Parasite,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and “Anatomy of a Fall,” which all went on to be Oscar-nominated. “Parasite” and “Anatomy of a Fall” both won.
IndieWire critic David Ehrlich praised “Anora” for being a blend of “Uncut Gems” and “Pretty Woman.”
“Splenetically hilarious for more than two hours before reality catches up with it in the film’s unforgettable final scene, ‘Anora’ has next to nothing to do with romance, and almost everything to do with the kind of working-class heartache that a modern Hollywood studio would never even try to get right,” Ehrlich wrote in the review out of Cannes 2024.
He added of the casting, “Baker’s movies live and die on the genius of their casting; not just because of the people he’s able to find, but also because of the characters he’s brave enough to go searching for in the first place. It’s a heartache that Mikey Madison’s towering lead performance allows to hide in plain sight, even — or perhaps especially — when she isn’t wearing anything that might help to disguise it, and her naked body transforms into a double blind that invites she and Ivan to share in different sides of the same fantasy.”
Read the full IndieWire review for “Anora” here.
“Anora” premieres October 18 in theaters. Check out the trailer below.
