Among the ten Best Picture nominees this year, it's evident hardly two or three films appealed more to the heart than the intellect — or, to be more specific, balanced technique with emotional quotient. Now, as to the choice of winners, disagreements are a given, but when one sees Anora winning over every other film in the list — especially The Brutalist and Nickel Boys, regarded as the top-most contenders — it's quite evident why the jury voted in favour of the Sean Baker film.
For one thing, it's an underdog story where the lead character Ani/Anora (Mikey Madison) realises that the overnight turn of events in her favour isn't exactly the queen-making fairytale she expected. At its heart, it shares some similarities with another Best Picture winner, Sylvester Stallone's first Rocky, also a classic underdog story. This is not always the case, but the Academy seems to gravitate towards such rags-to-riches stories when they're available and done well. Remember Slumdog Millionaire?
Perhaps it has to do with the bittersweet nature of these films. In all the above examples, even when the protagonists 'win' something, they lose something in the process. In the case of Anora, however, it tries something different with this template. Unlike Rocky or Slumdog Millionaire, however, it doesn't provide clear answers when it ends. But it does leave us with the possibility that the protagonist's new journey would be relatively better, more mature and sensible than the previous one. As a fairly funny coming-of-age drama, it works quite well despite its imperfections.
And when one considers its technique, Anora is a good (if not great) example of a film that doesn't get dominated by an overly formalist approach. And whether you agree with the film's Oscar win or not, Baker, who rightly won an editing Oscar for the film, cannot be criticised for going overboard with his visual design. Notice how the film's narrative energy becomes more subdued and less erratic when Ani meets an unexpected supporter in the form of the character Igor in the third act.
I cannot say for sure if others have felt the same way, but when compared to her 'quiet' scenes with Ivan/Vanya, I sensed a noticeable shift in energy as it inched closer to its finale. Baker seems to have breathed more life into the Ani-Igor scenes than he did with the Ani-Ivan ones, and understandably so.
Besides, the technique in Anora doesn't call attention to itself, as in, say, The Brutalist or Nickel Boys — two other films celebrated in many critics' circles for their visual derring-do. Yes, the latter films deserve appreciation for experimenting with familiar narrative techniques in a refreshingly different manner, but do they fully succeed at striking an emotional chord?
In the case of The Brutalist, we see a character in pain, but the film doesn't get too involved with what caused him so much pain. This is why Adrien Brody's performance in The Pianist surpassed this one. In that film, despite the impressive photography, scale and production design, we come away with the indelible image of, say, Brody drinking filthy cleaning water to quench his unendurable thirst. Sure, the actor did solid work in The Brutalist, but can we really say it's as good or superior to his performance as another holocaust survivor in The Pianist?
And what about Nickel Boys, a film based on Colson Whitehead's haunting novel of the same name? The book, which doesn't follow the non-linear, first-person POV of the film and reads more like an engrossing newspaper report, is far more impactful than RaMell Ross's cinematic adaptation. There's no denying that Ross is an incredibly gifted filmmaker — so much work must've gone into weaving together and scattering, in the right places, different fragments of its lead characters' dark past — but one cannot shake the feeling of watching a beautiful Instagram reel shot by someone with the help of a high-end movie camera. As in The Brutalist, it keeps us at a slight distance from the horrors and pain suffered by the characters.
On the other hand, Anora makes us feel the gravity of the insults directed at a rich, confused boy and his sex worker girlfriend who mistakenly assumed that her 'Prince Charming' was in complete control of his life. Simply put, Anora may not be a perfect film, but it reminds us of every single instance in our lives where our illusions got shattered into a million tiny pieces. Best Picture material? You bet.
