Movie Review: Anora ~ Written and Directed by Sean Baker

Initially I didn’t want to write a review for this movie, because of the opening graphic sex scenes and active drug use. Then I wondered how I would write it, because the story was about Ani’s many attempts to assert herself in her world of subservience ~ and it was full of humour and tenderness. Ani (short for Anora) was one of many escorts in a noisy, bright nightclub called the Headquarters. Private rooms in the back or on another floor were put to good use throughout the night. She and her friends shared a dressing room, and the bickering and secrets of school girls, with many choice words thrown at each other. Despite the glitter and polish, they were just young women doing a job. Sean Baker shows the gritty realism of this side of life. Ani (Mikey Madison) worked hard to earn her money, no matter how tired she got. 

The story twists off when Ani is asked to entertain a rich oligarch's son because she spoke limited Russian and none of the others did. After one night together, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) asked her to be his girlfriend ~ for a week. Ani was invited to his home for a wild party. It was really his father’s house and was a grand playground. When immature Ivan wasn’t occupied with sex, or drugs, he was playing video games. They flew to Las Vegas to continue the fun, and while there, he asked Ani to marry him. They were wed in one of the wedding chapels and the happy couple returned to New York. It wasn’t to last! Toros (Karren Karagulian), a priest who was to watch over Ivan was furious when he learned that Ivan’s parents had been notified of the marriage. Ivan’s parents were furious and were flying in from Russia to get the marriage annulled. In the ensuing 24 hours, Ivan ran away, Ani fought off the two thugs (Garnik and Igor) that had come to contain Ivan til his parents arrived, broke Garnik's (Vashe Tovmasyan) nose, threw whatever she could get her hands on, til she was finally tied up with a telephone cord and gagged. Once Toros had Ani calmed, the four of them spent the rest of the evening going from club to club and finally found Ivan, extremely intoxicated and with one of Ani’s adversaries.

Ivan’s parents arrived, the annulment did go through, and Ivan left for Russia with his parents. Ani had gone from happiness to frustration the day before, too angry at her powerlessness in the whole situation. The movie ends when Igor (Yura Borisov) drives her to the plain home she shared with a friend. The final scene of Sean Baker’s movie, was unexpected and touched me deeply.

My difficulty with the nudity, graphic sexuality vanished as I watched Ani in her humanity despite her circumstances. A beautiful movie that I would consider watching again.

“Sometimes you have to pretend to be strong, 

even when you’re breaking inside.”

~ Ani, Anora, directed by Sean Baker

Directed by: Sean Baker

Writing Credits: Sean Baker

Produced by: Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, Sean Baker

Abbreviated Cast: 

Mikey Madison - Ani (Anora)

Mark Eydelshteyn - Ivan (Russian oligarch's son)

Vincent Radwinsky - Jimmy (Club owner

Aleksey Serebryakov - Nikolai Zakharov (Ivan's father)

Darya Ekamasova - Galina Zakharov (Ivan's mother)

Karren Karagulian - Toros (priest)

Vache Tovmasyan - Garnik (thug)

Yura Borisov - Igor (thug)

Ivy Wolk - Crystal (escort and Ani's best friend)

Lindsay Normington - Diamond (Ani's adversary)

Academy Awards 2025

Original screenplay, film editing, directing and best picture

A Subjective Change

Topical issues are only a flowery surface 

in beeps and bytes ~ to get to the roots 

below the rhetorical chatter we have to get our hands dirty, get out the spade and the hoe, or stay home and enjoy the flowers. I’ve seldom been a very successful gardener, and never a politician but I do have opinions that are just that ~ opinions for a round of kitchen table discussion that drains the coffee pot and chews the fat of an evening unless someone changes the subject to something shallow like the fanciful Oscars fashions, the latest Iron Man movie or a Margaret Atwood novel favoured by a salesperson. That’s when the discussion gets seriously hilarious, 

clearing the kitchen table of any crumbs of topical issues.

“‘You is trying to change the subject,’ the Giant said sternly. ‘We is 

having an interesting babblement about the taste of the human bean.”

~ Roald Dahl, The BFG

Thinking Time

Hesitation begs me to think, but it’s a space filled with snow. 

Not the snow of winter, but the snow of an old TV screen with the rabbit ears that have gone to where ever rabbit ears go. 

In this time of World Wide Web and online this and that, if I hesitate all will be lost if I don’t hit 

‘send’ or ‘agree’ or some destructive directive to trap me in a world wide web of scammers. 

So hesitation prevents me from that 

reflexive one finger trip into a rabbit hole. 

Is that where all the rabbit ears have gone?

“Delay is as dangerous as the wrong answer.”

~ Frank Hebert,  Dune

Mischievous Thoughts

Thoughts come in bright colours or drab, with nowhere to go until they are pulled away into some stunning picture or great work of fiction without their consent or even being asked. They may just float away before they are recognized, laughing behind their little wordy faces. They are really only going away to hide inside the grey folds of our brains until it’s four o’clock in the morning. Then they surface in our dreams and make no sense at all. Or they may suddenly pop out into a conversation when that thought appears to have nothing to do with the 

flow of such a serious mind swap. 

But thoughts belong to us, or so we think. 

We may laugh, we may be annoyed, but the 

conversation continues with out any thought. 

In fact, it may have been the light bulb 

moment that was missing. So paying attention 

to our thoughts could be something important that we forgot.

“Where does a thought go when it’s forgotten?”

~ Sigmund Freud

From the Top

I have been called a ‘watch cat’ by many, but truth be told, I like to sleep during the day. Most of the day. Whenever I want to. However, today, was one of those cleaning days. When she washes all her clothes that’s normal. I still am confounded by that unnecessary task. I just lick myself clean and never have to change my fur. I just let it fly away and she picks it up. She spent a very long time, taking my beautiful fur out of my blankets. But I digress. The thing she calls a vacuum ~ noisy and rude. Pushes me out of the way. She at least changed the blanket in my new carrier. I know that’s what it is, so I’ve been steering clear of it. I finally got up here on this high perch so I could keep an eye on her. By the way, my human speech has really improved, don’t you think?

“As anyone well knows who has ever been around a cat 

for any length of time, cats have enormous patience 

with the limitations of the human mind.”

~ Cleveland Amory, 1917 - 1998

 American author, reporter, television critic, 

commentator and animal rights activist

Back and Forth

This branch, drooping over the fence 

unsure of whether to grow and flourish 

or to fade and dry up in the summer sun,

still is graceful in its uncertainty. Insistent lilacs made their own decision while deadness and the greenness were making up their minds ~ not unlike my writing practice that is still deciding whether to steady on or to toss it all over ~ so I continue to write until I have no more words, which has never been a failing of mine.

“If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking 

forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.”

~ Jim Carrey

Train Tracks

Progress: 

There is nothing like it 

only the chug of an engine 

crawling up a hill 

racing down the other side 

gears grinding 

to slow it’s momentum

the engineer that is the writer 

constantly switching tracks until 

completely lost 

in an undergrowth of words and rusted tracks 

but faithfully backtracking into the open 

until once again chugging along 

not knowing for sure where the tracks will lead

but seeing a light at the end of the tunnel

and hoping it’s not another train.

“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”

~ Marie Curie

On an Afternoon Walk ~ Even the Rabbits

Should I wear a coat?

a question that hangs in the air

like the coats in my closet

or maybe the sweaters ~

if I leave them behind

and the wind is cold

I should be prepared but

if the sun is telling the truth

I’ll just get uncomfortably warm,

slinging it over my shoulder 

while spring makes up its mind

even the rabbits hesitate before

changing from white to brown

when we all know ~ it should be a picture perfect spring.

“What’s up Doc?”

~ Bugs Bunny

Standing on End!

 Screen time

Taxes

You get it!!

“All things built with tax money are beautiful: 

so we must think or go mad.”

~ Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden

Book Review - LESS by Andrew Sean Greer (re-post)

This is a third read of Andrew Sean Greer’s novel LESS. I only realized this when I re-read my review from 2018, (my second read). My recall of this story was quite good! 

December 12, 2018

In a most unusual fashion, I read Pulitzer Prize winner LESS by Andrew Greer twice, and before our book club met yesterday. Initially, I played mind games with myself despite being intrigued by the concept of this novel. My second read, having ushered myself out of my mind, I enjoyed the humour and satire in the story following Arthur Less, a failed (according to Arthur) writer. While I was tempted to feel sorry for Arthur Less because his apparent inability to function in life, I found that was doing a disservice to himself. More than self-pity, he really seemed not to have accepted himself as a worthy human being. From the time he was a boy, when his father tried to ‘make a man’ of his son until, years later, his lover of nine years leaves him for another man, Arthur has seen himself in a rather shallow light. To avoid the pending marriage of his lover, he gathers any invitation he’s ever received to speak or teach, packs his bags and travels from New York across Europe in an effort to escape his life and ends back at home. The narrator of this humorous, but very real story, was obvious to many in my book group and in online reviews. Like Arthur, I just didn’t get it and it was revealed towards the end of the book. Another issue that occupied Arthur’s thoughts, besides the loss of his lover and his belief that he was failure as an author, was the fear of aging. Arthur's story is a love story and a coming of age story, pardon the pun. Laugh out loud scenes sparkle throughout this story. Humour so sly that I would almost miss it. Could it be because I don’t always get sly humour until I turn the page?

Always needing to see a philosophical point to a story, I was rewarded by Andrew Greer’s gentle, and humorous, description of the life of one gay man, living on the edge of the gay culture while at the same time being part of it. 

“But what I am trying to tell you (and I only have a moment), 

what I have been trying to tell you this whole time, 

is that from where I sit, the story of Arthur Less 

is not so bad. Because it is also mine.”

~ Andrew Sean Greer, LESS

Title: LESS

Author: Andrew Sean Greer

Copyright: 2017

Hardcover - 2017;

Paperback edition May 2018

Type: Novel 

Publisher: Hatchett Book Group, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-316-31612-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-0-316-31613-2 (pb)

Book design:  Sean Ford

Printed in the United States of America

Musical Improv Comedy Review - Citizen Hurricane

David Milchard and Ken Lawson are Citizen Hurricane and crazied me out of my comfort zone last night. In Darke Hall, they filled the evening with incredible and rapid improvisation. I’m don’t know much about audience response, but this Regina audience seemed to take most of the first set to warm up. These two comedians didn’t miss a beat though playing to and with the audience. Their improv extended to the music that they played, the songs that they made up. All of it interactive, never leaving their audience out. For two guys that have been at this for 20 years, they were impressive. Some of it was not to my liking however that didn’t stop me from laughing, clapping and at one point I almost shouted out an answer to one of their hilarious questions. I managed to restrain myself and it never left the back of my throat.                                                                              

“You’re only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.”

~ Robin Williams

David and Ken can be contacted at:

info@davidandken.com

davidandken.com

David and Ken on Facebook

A Cold Day

 

What ideas do I have tonight? If I have any they have been tossed in the trash with crumpled tissues, or settled into cosy blankets, or brewed with tea ’til it cooled. Napping and binge watching old N.C.I.S. TV shows has been the order of the day. I did rouse myself when hunger told me to. My best idea today: scrambled eggs with fried potatoes, onion, red pepper flakes, garlic powder and a good amount of grated parmesan satisfied my cravings for food.

“My dear doctor, I’m surprised to hear you say that I am coughing

 very badly, because I have been practising all night.”

~ John Philpot Curran

The Weather Deals

Endeavouring to play with the cards dealt can be most curious. This time it’s just weird. Two of the potatoes I stuck in the dirt last February just sprouted. Why did I plant potatoes in February in Saskatchewan? For February, it felt like it was almost spring? What do I do now? Let the beautiful plants keep growing? Pull them out? I guess I’ll just protect them from any frost, get them inside pretty soon - but I hear we’re due for some warm weather soon! 

Where is the dedication in all this? In my farmer genes. Haven’t much of a green thumb, but if the weather just hints at me, I’ll plant something!

“When all is said and done the weather and love are 

the two elements about which one can never be sure.”

~ Alice Hoffman,  Here on Earth

A Meeting of Minds ~ 3

They were having a serious discussion. Two young men coming home from school stopped because of Tommy “It’s a duck. Now let’s go.” Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he started to walk away. 

“That’s dumb. It’s just a cloud.” Jimmy didn’t believe all that stuff about clouds. His mom was always seeing bunny rabbits or elephants. He couldn’t tell her she was being dumb unless he wanted to get in trouble.

Neither of them wanted any trouble. Tommy always went to his friend’s house after school. His parents didn’t get home from work until supper. His big sister had basketball practice or was just hanging out with her friends. “Mom’s baking day today. Hope you’re hungry.” 

“Sure am. Last one to your house is a rotten egg!!”

“Everything you can imagine is real.”

~ Pablo Picasso

Drawing a Blank ~ 3

 

Tempered glass bears the brunt of 

wild weather and unbearably hot sun 

until the weather is wilder than wild……

…..And this seems to be going nowhere

so I’ll stop…..for now.

“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the Muse shows up, too.”

~ Isabel Allende