176. Best Picture Showcase '25: ANORA dir. Sean Baker

The next stop for the Best Picture Showcase leads us to the nominee widely considered the frontrunner for this year's Best Picture Oscar, ANORA.This movie, produced, edited, written and directed by Sean Baker, follows the whirlwind romance of a Brooklyn sex worker named Anora (a hot-headed Mikey Madison, and by the way, it's Ani, not Anora, she doesn't like her full name) and her wealthy patron-turned-lover Vanya (an impulsive Mark Eydelshteyn whose face appears fixed in an eternal sheepish, inebriated grin stretched from ear to ear). Vanya's parents are loaded and back in Russia, leaving Vanya to indulge in every source of dopamine he can get his hands on, but when a Vegas trip leads to Ani and Vanya's little-white-chapel wedding, the parents send their "goons" - an exhausted priest, his bumbling right-hand man and a stoic, though gentle hired hand named Igor (a frankly excellent and deservedly Oscar-nominated Yura Borisov) - to get the marriage annulled at all costs.ANORA, shot in Baker's independent frame of mind, balances the loose, handheld reality of forgiveness-not-permission filmmaking with a formal understanding allowing his characters to exist in a heightened state. This is a world fueled by that pure, if naive, puppy-dog love, bathed in the dazzling colors and sunlight that allow people to, if even for a short time, believe in magic.The romance contrasts with the screwball-tinged comedy and drama of the second half of the movie and while I sympathize with those for whom this part of the movie sends their nerves into a frazzled state, I find it just emblematic of that enigmatic New York energy. It's a chaotic town where shit can go south quickly, so watching Ani hold her own in a city-wide crusade to resolve her new marriage problems feels me both with gut-busting laughs and deep, sympathetic sorrow. It's a bittersweet movie that promises no easy answers, but what life ever does?---Follow The Movies on Instagram & LetterboxdThrow a couple dollars in the tip jar!