[The following story contains spoilers from Anora .] It’s the scene of the film and maybe of the season: midway via his sex-worker dramedy Anora , director Sean Baker one way or the other places on the board a 28-minute real-time scene during which a pair of heavies out of an ’80s action-comedy search to rein in Mikey Madison’s tough-but-vulnerable escort as she fights again. What begins as one thing broad and comedic quickly morphs into a way more disturbing tableau — a bit of violent misogyny that implicates a tradition of poisonous masculinity, class elitism and even the viewers itself.
Quickly will probably be onerous to go wherever in movie circles with out listening to about it. “I wished to do a set piece centered on a real-time house invasion and it fleshed out from there,” Baker informed the viewers on the Palme d’Or winner‘s 2024 New York Movie Competition premiere Saturday evening, explaining how the bold and shape-shifting sequence got here to be. The film issues Madison’s title character, a strip-club dancer and someday escort, who impulsively marries her consumer, the goofy dissolute son of a Russian oligarch.
The scene issues the son’s mobster-y protectors, Toros (Karren Karagulian) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), who come to the mansion Anora’s staying at to get her to annul the wedding. After forcing their approach in, they struggle each type of bodily and psychological violence to coax her to agree. Lamps shatter, biting and choking ensu.