this video is brought to you by Squarespace the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online these last few years if you were to ask me to name my favorite American director working today I would probably say Shawn Baker he's one of the most exciting and consistent a tours to hit the scene and I've been a fan since he completely changed my perception of what a film can be with tangerine and despite the critical Acclaim in the film World he's always been on the outskirts in my opinion not getting the wide level
of respect I always thought he deserved until Anora ever since the Palm Door at this year's can film festival Lora has been bub buzzing some going as far to call it sha Baker's magnum opus the film is about Annie a sex worker from Brooklyn who meets Ivonne the son of a Russian oligarch and what happens when they get married and his family finds out if this is your introduction to Shawn Baker movies about sex work are kind of his bread and butter for basically his entire career he's aimed to explore the subject through a very
empathetic lens hoping to destigmatize it through his work while he has occasionally been accused of making poverty porn I've always considered his work to have a net positive outcome no he's not the first and only filmmaker to ever make movies about sex work hell Hustlers came out just a few years ago and was just as comprehensive in its exploration of the subject in my opinion I just think his incredibly entertaining surprising and visually striking approach to a subject like this has made him one of the most interesting filmmakers we have also he hasn't missed like
maybe some of them aren't great but he hasn't made one bad movie so there's also that and even though he's explored the theme five times now this is the first time sex work felt at the Forefront of the story he was telling which makes this being projected to be his most successful and widely acclaimed film all the more impressive and satisfying despite its reach you just cannot say Anora is shy about its depiction of sex work the movie gets right down to business the First Act being significantly more graphic than the rest of the film
to me this Choice reads as Baker Breaking Down the door immediately throwing any doubters right into the thick of it destroying the stigma associated with the subject before we go any deeper I don't like to talk too much about Awards buzz when reviewing a film as it feels most of the time like a completely separate and irrelevant conversation but I feel the need to acknowledge that this thing is a best picture front runner because that's simply insane to see a film explore a theme like sex work so explicitly and without any sense of judgment and
to see it succeed at also being easily digestible to an extent that it's getting Awards Buzz it's a step forward I mean think back to hustlers in 2019 it wasn't the best thing in the world but it got completely shut out of the awards conversation probably because of its subject it's one thing to make a movie about something that doesn't get the respect it deserves it's another to do so on a stage like this it reminds me of what something like midnight cowboy meant when it won best picture in 1970 despite being rated X for
reasons that now feel incredibly dated it makes you wonder how something like Anora or more specifically sex work will be looked at 20 years from now the thing is this is all stuff I had read and heard about the film before even seeing it I try to go into things unbiased but knowing the buzz and knowing the filmmaker behind it I already knew Anora was going to be something pretty special if you can't tell what I forgot somewhere along the way is that Shawn Baker can be very funny and this is basically a screw ball
comedy knowing that Baker thrives in small scale scenarios I was worried going into this that the whole inclusion of a Russian oligarch would feel like Baker overstepping into corny crime film territory nothing against crime films obviously it's just not what I look for in a sha Baker project but maybe I should shut the up because all of that stuff is such a blast every member of this family goons included is hilarious I'll be honest based on the trailer and the clips I had seen I was doubtful Mark Idol thing would work on me in the
actual film as his delivery out of context is truly so bizarre and weird but he explodes in more than just one way he lets certain words just sit and then picks back up when you don't expect him to his Cadence is just so all over the place in a way I found really charming and fun when he dips out of the film for a while you really feel his absence I missed him so much ran Baker is so good at directing his male actors to be as immature and insufferable as possible yet they're always so
funny and likable at the same time it's it's magic on a separate wavelength Mikey Madison is unsurprisingly incredible the thing about sha Baker protagonists is as much as I love them they're often so narrow-minded about their goals and Ambitions it's hard to see a sense of nuance to them which the movies usually get away with because that Nuance comes out more so in the film itself than in the characters but in this case Madison's portrayal of Annie is one of the most layered performances I've seen in any Shawn Baker film not only is the attention
to detail in her portrayal of the subject believable but for a film that can flip tones in a snap she never fails to adapt in fact and this is a first for Shawn Baker I would say she's better at balancing tone in her performance than the film is itself let me preface by making it clear that I liked Anora a lot okay I liked this movie a lot but I'd be lying if I said I didn't struggle with this thing at times and some of that's on me I am one of red Rocket's biggest Shooters
there's something more satisfying about seeing a loser successfully con others only to fall on his face rather than seeing a likable character get slowly conned herself but Anor makes up for how Grim its Central tragedy is with a silly and over-the-top hunt for Ivon in the middle which is certainly fun like I said it's it's like a screw ball comedy but in the past the silliness in his films always had some sort of tragic meaning underneath this is especially the case in red rocket Mikey's undeniable charm is really just a tool he uses to manipulate
people the humor not only works incredibly well but it serves a greater purpose in the movie in Anora the sillier it gets the more elaborate the screw ball comedy elements are the further we drift from Anora the less concerned the film feels in exploring her character which was just kind of frustrating ating after a while it gets away with it in the first act because it's just so intoxicating it's so euphoric you you don't really care I guess it's also just nice to see a character having fun but I also would say there's something interesting
about yvon's recklessness and immaturity and the questionable power dynamics between the two in that first act that makes it all really compelling when she's hanging out with the goons I feel so far away from what got me invested in the first place we see Shawn Baker at his best though in the final two scenes in the film if you've seen a Shawn Baker movie you you know his endings tend to paralyze you I knew he would cut to the credits a certain way he is very predictable in that way at this point but the way
he gets there never ceases to amaze me it's a scene that redefines a lot of what you already saw in the film and is shockingly straightforward for a baker protagonist who are usually behind so many different walls and never really confront any sort of trauma inside of them but uh boy does she do that here and that's just the final scene the scene that comes before it just as good it goes from intimate and refreshingly cozy to paranoid and tense and then it caps off with a punch line that should definitely not land but does
and as funny as the punch line is I find it to be a pretty succinct way of showing Annie's defense mechanisms a moment only made more tragic by what follows in the next scene that's the Shawn Baker magic making something so hilarious and so devastating at the same time you don't even realize it that's the kind of balance in character building I simply wish was more present while we were in the thick of the film during the Ivon Chase I understand why it's not there this film is noticeably focused on plot in a way other
Baker films just aren't and it's the fact that it's so plotty and poppy that's made it such a success already I mean Baker infusing his underground sensibilities into what could be perceived as a mainstream Awards film is at the end of the day maybe more impressive and interesting as it's not the kind of thing you see very often if you can't tell I wouldn't call Anora my favorite Shawn Baker film it's not as unique or as grounded as some of his best and that's how I like it personally but I stand by the fact that
it's his most important film a bold New Direction for his style that has the same empathetic lens his work has had since the beginning but presented in a way that maybe your parents can get into you know if we're living in a time where Shawn Baker is one of the most successful a tours in the industry I think we're going to be all right and that's what I have to say thanks for watching go watch and nor and your own opinion and before you head out I want to thank this week's sponsor Squarespace the all-in-one
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