March 14, 2025 • 40 mins
Anora is the movie that swept the Oscars this year, taking home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing.
It’s also one of the wildest movie watching experiences we have ever had, so now it’s time for a brutally honest review on the movie that everyone is talking about. From the unexpected story behind the film’s plot, to the many controversies that surrounded it’s release and some eyebrow raising stories from how it was filmed, the conversation around Anora is just as intriguing as the movie itself.
Plus, we need to talk about the film’s ending, and how it left our entire cinema speechless.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
So much. You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mamma
Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and borders that
this podcast is recorded on from Mamma Mia. Welcome to
the Spill, your daily pop culture fixed. I'm Laura Brodnick.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I'm m Venim. It is our brutally honest review time.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So yes, today's episode is a brutally honest review of Anra,
better known as the film that swept the twenty twenty
five Oscars. So we obviously raved about this movie when
we saw it at the end of last year. In
our Christmas episode about the Movies you had to Watch,
we dedicated pretty much the whole show to this and Nosferatu,
(00:55):
which I also am sad it didn't win any Oscars.
Two iconic movies, only one swept the Oscars. We tried.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I don't know if you know this, but we're actually
the reason why it won the Oscars.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well exactly, so we have been hyping this movie for
a long time. Today's episode was a very special request
by one Emily Fernam Well, it was more of a demand, actually,
you said, we're doing a brilliance review of Anurra.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I think because Obviously, we try to stick to some
sort of structure here on this bill, and we usually
try to give people like a week or a few
weeks to watch a movie because we do talk about spoilers,
and then we do our Brilliance review once everyone's watched it.
But obviously this movie has been out for a few
months now, but I think since it was announced as
the like Oscar winner, like the big winner of the
(01:39):
evening and also the most surprising winner, all my friends
can talk about is how badly they want to see
the movie. And I feel like so many more people
are now going to be watching annoy and now.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well that is also the point of our Brilliancet reviews
is that it's the movie and TV show everyone is
talking about that week, which is definitely this week Anorra
after its Oscar sweep. Is it our fault it's a
few months later, No, but also your fault watch but
also yeah, let's blame people that will go over really well.
But also it's still in limited theaters, which is really
if you want to go and watch the movies, or
(02:09):
you can now ren it or buy it on Prime
Video and Apple TV, so you can also watch in
the comfort of your own home, and that is all
we like to call a loophole, which makes it a
new movie because you can only do that recently.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, and also it is so worth the rent, like
it's so worth rented.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah. Absolutely, we've hyped it so much, as Emily is
trying to say, like, we feel like a little bit
responsible for this success of Anura because we were championing
it from the moment we saw it.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
We even mourned it when we really thought it wasn't
going to win any ward.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
It's so funny because I went on an episode of
The Quickie, which is mum MEA's news podcast, last year,
and I was doing my predictions for what was going
to come up in the awards and like Oscars and everything.
Claire Murphy asked me, like, what was going to be
the big movie, what was going to sweep the Oscars?
And I was like, well, Anora, Like nothing's going to
beat a Nourra. And I had forgotten i'd said that
because I started to doubt myself because Anor peetered out
an interest for a long time. And I now feel
(03:01):
very vindicated that it came back around because it debuted
at the carn Film Festival in May of last year,
where it just got so much critical acc but it
was also the movie that everyone was posting about, everyone
was talking about everyone, Like all the coverage from that
film festival, which is one of the most prestigious in
the world, was like, Anora is the movie of the
Year that next year. And then it also won the
(03:23):
Palm Dual, which is the big award from that season.
And then it came out and it did still get
critical acclaim, but it did kind of peter out. It
didn't become the huge kind of talking point like in
a mainstream way.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
But it's like what you said, like, it was such
a good movie, but there were also so many other
great movies.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
This, yeah, exactly. And then as it came into awards season,
it was nominated for everything, but it seemed to really
be like Amelia Perez was breaking so many records for
how many nominations it had, Demi Moore was winning everything
for the substance Conclave kind of came into the mix.
Wicked was there as the kind of big budget one
everyone was talking about, even though they didn't win too much,
and Anora was just in the background. Every so often
(04:02):
it would pop up and win something, but not really.
And then we came to the Oscars where it won
Best Picture, notoriously Best direct our Best Actress. That was
a whole huge thing, as we said, because it Demi
Moore was kind of a lock to win Best Original
Screenplay and Best Editing. And Sean Baker, who is the
creator of Anor, the writer, the director, the producer, tied
(04:24):
with Walt Disney for the most Oscar wins for one
film in a night.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The classic Walter.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That's insane. So now it's like Walt Disney and Sean Baker,
the two greats up there. So that's when the movie
is now having a second life, which I love. I mean,
obviously we're hoping you guys have watched it because we're
going to go deep into spoilers. But if anyone's like
us and watched it like three months ago, do you
want to give the people what it's about? Yeah, what's
your little tagline?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
So a little tagline for the movie chaotic, funny, sad.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, and you feel those emotions, You're like, this is chaotic,
this is really funny. Oh, this is.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Probably the exact order I just described it. So what
I really enjoyed about this movie. And I don't want
to come across as like a basic bitch. He's not
good at her.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Oh come on, we are basy bitches. Premise about podcast cross.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
But a lot of these movies that make it into
like the Oscar lineup aren't usually movies for me. Like
they're usually like these big cinematic masterpieces that you're sitting
there in the theater for like four hours and you're
not fully understanding the plot.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
The brutless just feels really attacked right now, he should
after that speech.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
You're just sitting in the cinema for hours, you're not
really sure what's going on. All you're doing is like
recognizing famous people that you know in the movie, and
this was not one of those. Firstly, I didn't recognize
a single person in this movie. Like, this movie felt
so new to me. Every single person in this movie
who acted in it was absolutely brilliant, and the concept
(05:53):
of it was just something that was so beyond my
imagination that I couldn't even think about. And I just
thought it was so interesting, so unique. It felt like
a very indie film.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, well it is an indie film. Is it an
indie film? Yeah? It was made for like a small
amount of money, but it like made that money back
like threefold at the office, and it was only filmed
over thirty seven days. Like that's a tiny, tiny production
for like a film that went on to sweep the Oscars.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Okay, See, this was just blown my mind because I
thought this was going to be massive budget because there's
like massive mansions and stuff in this But it was
just like one of those movies that I haven't felt
like such a range of Like we talked about this
recently and I really honest review of Bridge Jones and
having the range of emotions we feel, but I feel
like with something with Bridge Jones, it was like very
(06:39):
much expected emotions, whereas this one was so unexpected, Like
I never felt so seen in a movie. I've never
felt so uncomfortable in a movie. I've never laughed this
much in a movie. I never cried this much in
a movie. And then the ending was just something that
like it just sticks with you. It's one of these
films that, even though we have watched months ago, I
can't stop thinking about, Like.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Our two movies of the year, I think a lot
of the magic came from the casting, and it's just
saying like, it's a lot of people who I'd have
been acting for a while or it was like among
their first acting jobs, which I think added to it.
But I think that's also why it didn't go mainstream
in the way it would have if there was Like
Baby Girls also was a very low budget indie movie,
(07:23):
but then new factor in the Nicole Kimmen of it all,
and all of a sudden, that's mainstream and everyone's talking
about it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Same with like Adrian Brody and the Brutal Yes, and.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Mikey Madison is a very beloved actress, but not on
the level as like obviously like Anicle Kimen or anything
like that. What's interesting is that when Sean Baker, well,
he'd been wanting to write this movie for a really
long time, and he'd been talking about it to Kara
and Carl Gillian, who plays Taurus in the movie. Yeah funny, Yeah,
the fixer who gets called for everyone who's seen it,
(07:54):
which is again is hopefully all of you. So they've
worked together for many years. They'd had this idea of
wanting to write about the Russian community in New York
and Brooklyn and how that would be. Sean Baker also
said that Anora was inspired by this story he'd heard
from a friend about a Russian American newlywed who was
kidnapped for collateral. He was like, you know, that'd be
a great comedy idea for me to like just take that.
(08:14):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So it's like pretty much a true story.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I mean, I don't think it actually played out like this.
It was just like, oh, what if that kind of happened?
Did at film the basis of the story. So Sean
started writing this movie many many years ago, and interestingly,
Mikey was always kind of in his mind for the
character of a Nora. So he said that Mikey Madison
first captured his attention in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Do you remember her in that?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Oh my god, I forgot you.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
We did that movie together? No, I think we did.
Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
No, I saw it with my parents. They also, like me,
didn't understand anything that's happening.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Okay, well, the whole office went. I just assumed you
were there, so we didn't innight you. Mikey Madison's a
real standout as one of the Manson family who goes
in and yeah, tries to kill Leonardo DiCaprio. It was
her first big movie.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
She's just super crapy.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
The background actors and that are Margaret Cawley, Sydney Swep,
Austin Butler, and Mikey Madison, all kids who infamously went
on to be went on to be the new like
kind of raining people of Hollywood. So that was some
great casting there by Quentin Tarantino. So yes, Sean saw
Mikey once upon a time in Hollywood and she only
(09:19):
had like fifteen minutes of screen time. But he's like,
that actress has stolen the show and I want to
cast her in something. He then saw her and Scream
in twenty twenty two, which I'm assuming you haven't seen.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
You should watch it just for that, just for her
performances care so you'll be okay, I'll come over and
watch it with you with the lights on. That won't
save you if the killer comes later, but just you know.
And he was just like, I know that she's the
actress for this role. And she was incredible, which again
we were saying before she run the oscar. Interestingly, she
didn't know any Russian beforehand, and she learned it all
(09:51):
going into the movie, which I guess that's what actresses do.
But there's just a way that she speaks it, and
not that I speak Russian, so I wouldn't if she's
doing it correctly. But I just spent you know, a
month in Russia at one stage to my ear, so
to my ear, she sounded great. And interestingly euro Borisov,
who plays Igor, who is Russian henchman, I love all
(10:11):
the henchmen.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
He's so high, who.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Kind of like initially is like kind of the bad guy,
then flips kind of helping her out. Had never spoken
English before. So the two of yeah, I know, how
impressive are these.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
People are working together. So it starts off where we're
introduced as Mikey Madison. She plays Annie, who's the lead
of the movie, and she is a stripper. It's actually
like the first opening scene was quite like sudden to
me because I just show everything, like everything in the
strip club. You see her boss, I would say, at
(10:43):
the strip club, like leads her to a client, and
we find out the client is Yvonne, who is a
twenty one year old billionaires son.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Just the definition of an F boy, Just.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
The definition of an F boy, A definition of just
a twenty one year.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Old yeah, exactly, who's got a lot of money and
no rules.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
The reason why he wanted her was because he's Russian
and he wanted someone to speak Russian. But she's like,
I don't like speaking Russian because I'm not too good
at it, but I can understand everything you're saying, which
I I really enjoyed because I felt like it was
just real. So you just see like a different dialect
of like him speaking Russian and her answering in englandh Yeah.
I think the vulnerability of the entire strip club is
(11:21):
just so interesting because you have these men there who
are literally being grinded on essentially having sex, and these women.
It's where it's so obvious they're just doing their job, kay,
and there's like no like flirty behavior going on with them,
like they're there to get their money and then just
go home.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, she's such a professional. Like the opening scene where
you see her kind of like working the club scene
and like getting the different men and they're doing the
dancing upstairs, and interestingly none of that was like planned
and choreographed. All those initial dance scenes where you see
like the women like grinding on the men, and also
you see Anora or Annie. I guess you know she's
like to be called Anora. You see Annie dancing on
the men all that sort of stuff. That was just
(11:56):
all like Mikey Madison saying like I just want to
come in and like Sean Baker working with her and
having like a small clothes set and them saying like,
we're not going to choreograph this and plan this of
like where she's gonna put her hands or how she's
gonna dance, what the men are gonna do. It was
just like a free for all.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
So they don't have an intimate coordinator.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
No, no, no. So that conversation obviously kicked off when
she and Pamela Anderson had that on the Actress an
Acres series. Yeah, but I don't think people realize how
much that extended to like the whole movie. So for
all the sex scenes and the dance scenes and all
that sort of stuff, there was no intimacy creator on set,
which depending on who you speak to, people have a
lot of different ideas around that.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But there are some explicit intimate scenes and also it's
like the dancers in the background and the male actors,
but also the people who are watching.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
That was the big kind of pushback from people and
especially intimacy coordinators who waited on that whole controversy is
that they were saying the intimacy coordinator is not just
there for the lead actress. Obviously they're supposed to be
there for them in a huge way, but the actress
saying she doesn't feel she needs one, shouldn't negate someone
being on set because also other people, it's for the
(13:00):
camera people. It's for the extra who's been brought in
to be the man who's being danced on, Like it's
for the like the makeup people, and like it's for
the wardrobe people of like what they want to see
when they're dressing people. There's all these layers to it.
So in a way, I understand because Mikey Madison said,
like we were a really close knit tiny it's a
tiny cast, it's a tiny crew. They shot it over
(13:20):
thirty seven days. It was a lot of just like
people running around with cameras and places they rented, like
it wasn't a big production, and she thought an intimacy
coordinator would really take away from the magic and the
spontaneity of the filming experience.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So I remember, that's so specifically now you mention it,
because I remember it was like you could see in
Pamela Anderson's eyes going, you're offered that and you said no.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, She's like I've been fighting my whole career for that,
but okay, you come in, which I mean everything I've
heard this movie everyone did feel really safe and they're
a close cast, So maybe that's great, but I just
I think obviously it's a bigger conversation of as if
you want to be the one makeup artist who's like, well,
actually I would like it intimacy coordinator before I like
go and glue sequence onto this woman's fair breasts or something.
But so yeah, all that's just very loose in choreographed,
(14:02):
and it's an interesting introduction to all the characters because
you see any kind of like being very business like
when she's like trying to find clients when she's working
with them, and then you see her like interacting with
her co workers, and you see her go home and
she's just like anyone else's going home from a night
of work. Like just because it's stripping in sex work,
it doesn't mean she doesn't have a commute home, sleeps coffee.
The next dabeus being like, oh, we have to go
(14:24):
to work tonight. Like it's just it's very relatable.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, And I think what you see straight up, especially
after her encounter with Ivan, is that because he's such
a young guy with so much money, it's like he
can't fathom that this is just a job for her.
He's very much like, oh, but like now we should
be together, obvies. So he offers her like fifteen thousand
dollars like USD dollars to spend the entire week with him.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, and that it obviously includes the sex work, but
it includes also like a girlfriend experience like hanging out,
coming to parties, talking together, playing games, which is where
the pretty woman in comparisons have come in in a
huge way. What do you think of those, because that's
become quite a controversial conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I actually didn't see the comparison straight away, I think
because of the big age difference. But it's actually true
because with Ivan's case, like he is like the son
of a billionaire, but he is so extremely lonely, like
you never see him with friends, you never seen him
with his family until right.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
At the end, Rigid Gear was lonely too, Yeah, he
was lonely as well.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
But I think it's like a really good comparison because
you can see like both ends of the spectrum, Like
if you have that much money for a man, it
looks like you will always just be alone throughout your
entire life stage. It doesn't happen towards the end, and
it doesn't just happen at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, that's so true. It's interesting because a few times
when I especially when Rigidgee is lonely, Yeah, I was
like just just a cavia. I used to watch that
movie as a kid over and over and over again,
so weird, not realizing what was happening. My mum taped
out the sex scene because she taped off TV on
a VH, so she taped off the sex scene, so
it wasn't ntil. I was like twenty fivest like that said,
(16:02):
so I was almost like a producer before such amazing.
I watched it like a fairy tale, which I think
a lot of people think about Pretty Woman because it
is like it's meant to be like a classic rom
com until you're like it has been a lot. Yeah,
well that's kind of I think a lot of people
are quite angry about the comparison between Pretty Woman and Anora.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
But who maybe our younger generation after romanticize this well,
I mean, yeah, I guess there are some moments in
this where you're like, oh, that seems fun.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I guess like maybe people are thinking we're looking at
these two movies on a surface level by comparing them.
So both of these movies had this idea that it's
like a stripper sex worker with a heart of gold
who's beautiful but doesn't know it, kind of gets swept
away by this rich man who you know, decides to
give her this life that she deserves and she gets
to kind of leave this like other life behind. And
(16:47):
I guess in Pretty Woman's case that does happen, like
they go off and get married and he like rescues
her quote unquote from sex Work. Whereas I think what
people get upset about is Anora is a much more
layered movie than that and obviously doesn't have a happy
ending spoiler alert for what's coming end of this podcast,
And so they feel like it's maybe doing a disservice
to Anora to say that it's a different version of
(17:08):
Pretty Woman, but insane. It's such an easy comparison to
quickly get people in. So like after it won all
the Oscars, so many people were saying to me like,
oh my god, what's Anura? Should I watch it? What's
it about? Like so many people, even though that one
picture from the office to remember that everyone's spun around
to you and me and they're like, what's Anra about it?
I'm like, first of all, you don't listen to this
spill a little shaming for our colleagues embosses. And second
(17:31):
of all, I was like, Oh, it's about this and this,
And I'm like, oh, it's more like a hardcore pretty woman,
because it's just an easy way to explain it. Yeah,
that's why I understand why people are upset.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I think also what's upsetting with the comparison is the
idea of love. Because I think we're pretty women. You
can argue that they were genuinely in love with each.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Other, yeah, that they fall in love over that week.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Whereas an Anora you can easily see that that's not
the case for either of them. Like this twenty one
year old guy probably is in love with her what
he thinks is love, but that could have been anyone
who walked into that room when he met her and
he just needed someone, Like he's so young and he's
so vulnerable, and he has all this money that he
just wants someone there. And for her, she's in love
with the lifestyle that he could offer her, not necessarily him.
(18:11):
So when like it all blows up, she's mourning like
what her life could have been as a person exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
But I do think that's an interesting thing because that's
something that's come up as well, like was she in
love with his money or was she in love with him?
And I actually think it's a little bit of both.
Like I think initially obviously it's the money, but I
think once they spend time together and he's like at
first the sex is bad and she's having to kind
of teach him like no, no, do this, do that
that kind of stuff, which if you're a sex worker,
(18:40):
you know you're there to kind of like work with
a client. So I think as they start having conversations
about their sex life, if it comes a bit more couply.
And what's also interesting is that Mikey Madison tried to
really put in the work when she was preparing to
be a sex worker. One thing is like she went
to like a stripper camp where she learned to do
all the pole dancing because she did all that in
the movie and was trained by a bunch of women
(19:00):
who do pole dancing. But she also like read a
lot about sex work. She talked to sex workers, and
something that people really loved her for at her Oscars
speech was that she thanked the sex worker community. People
get angry about and I'm like, get out of here.
You can't take their story and their experience. Why would
you make a movie? Or they're like, oh, she's glamorizing
sex work, and it's like, that's just thanking the people
(19:20):
who helped you out. Can you mention if she didn't
say anything and she took these women's stories, used it
for a movie, won an oscar, then didn't say anything,
It's like, not glad, it's also a real thing. This
is what kind of makes a story so compelling. I
think there is a moment there where she starts to
fall in love with the idea of like being taken
care of, and you know, he's telling her even though
(19:40):
he's a creepy little kid a lot of the time,
Like once they start talking and he's asking her questions
about herself, and once Avinya starts really kind of you know,
talking to her and sort of like, I want us
to be married, I wantus to be a couple. You
can sort of see that she loves the idea of
being in a partnership and being taken care of and
someone sort of seeing who she is as much as
she's also loving all the money because half the time, like, yes,
(20:02):
they go off and do crazy things up most of
the time they're either having sex upstairs all their downsairs
on the couch and she's watching him play video games.
To love someone for that, that's true. At least Richard
Gere has taken her to the polo and on private jet.
So maybe she.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Loves just doing nothing because I feel like it would
have been the first time in her life where she
had the privilege of just doing that.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Most things she's just lying on his chest, talking to him,
and a few times she's like is this all we're doing?
But mostly I think it's that safety. Also, as the
next sesson we're getting into when it gets found out
what's happened all the Russian henchmen arrive. One thing she
gets really upset about is she's like, this is my house,
this is my house, like she's found this safe place.
And when the Henchman come in, which is a great scene,
(20:42):
I think that's when things get sort of messed up.
So the henchman scene, can I just say, I've never
seen you react to a scene in a movie like before,
and I've watched you in one of my hope things
to do in a movie is to watch the movie,
but to watch Emily because you just have a visceral reaction,
like the last Magic Mike movie where I looked over
and you just slipped off your chair and you curled
(21:03):
into a little boar law. I don't like that, Maybe
because you were upset by the naked man even though
it was just one bear chest. There was no nudity
in that moment.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Oh my god, you should have seen me in one
of them days you lost it.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Mostly started to get to see your reaction. So we're
watching Anura, We're all into it and loving like everything
about the movie. And then obviously once Annie and Vanya
are in their little love bubble and it gets found
out and the henchmen arrived, then the movie kind of
kicks into this like action overdrive. You were like laughing
so hard, you were making the cinema chairs because they
(21:38):
were joined together shake so hard.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was the best scene I've ever experienced in my life.
So they just get back from Vegas. They got married
in Vegas. His parents find out about the marriage, so
they send his godfather, who was in this church.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I think performing a baptism or something, and he just
kind of flicks some more of the baby. He's like, oh,
you'll be fine, call you and.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Saying you have to get you right now. You do it.
So these three men, basically we have the godfather, who
I guess.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Is the leader, the leader of the henchman.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Then these two henchmen come to the mansion because they
have to convince Ivan and Annie to get an annulment,
to annul the wedding. They can't do it a divorce
because that'll be a strain on their family's name, so
it has to be a nullment, and then chaos absolutely insues.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Oh my gosh, insane.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So what I really liked about this scene was that
immediately Annie starts fighting with them, like she is immediately angry.
She doesn't want these men in her house. Ivan's kind
of like angry at the start, and then you see
it tapering away when he realizes that this is real,
but she's just so so aggressive, and then it's one
of those things where the audience has to work out
(22:51):
the level of danger they're in, yeah, which I thought
was really interesting because you see so many movies and
TV shows with these big, like fight scenes and these
physical brawls, and they're either really really quick or really
really gory and overdrawn, really scary, and this one was
just the perfect in between, because you're like, who are
these henchmen? Are they actually really dangerous? Will they actually
(23:13):
hurt her? Will they actually do something worse and hurt her?
And what happens is that she just takes control of
the situation. She just tarts beating the hell out of
these fully grown men. And because they're so scared, and
also they're like, I guess we can say that in
their heart, they're nice men. Yeah, So they don't want
to physically hurt her, so all they do is just
(23:35):
try to restrain her, which is another form of like
physically hurting a woman.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, And it's just so bloody funny the way she
fights versus the way and some of.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
The way thing like some part of your brain is
telling you this woman is being like attacked, they're restraining her.
She's screaming, she's terrified. Yet we are in the audience
are hysterically screaming laughing because I think just the absurdity
of the situation and also just the way like that
is masterful, that whole scene.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So it took because so you can tell they've never
done this before.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I know, they're like the is ye, like the do't
want to go. It's like put her hands behind her
back not in the front, like and then she's like
breaks his nose and it's a whole thing. So that
whole scene is twenty eight minutes long, which could have
been another twenty minutes no I know, but usually for
a movie that would be like literally five minutes. Like
that is crazy to have a scene like that be
twenty eight minutes in a movie, but it just works
(24:26):
so well. It took eight days to shoot and they
only shot for thirty seven days, so that's like quite
a bit of chunk of time. And they were just
like again, nothing planned, nothing. They were obviously scripting in
there and some kind of idea of what they were
going to do, but most of it it's wonder someone
to get their nose broken for real, glass, It was
a lot of improv In fact, that whole scene that
Mikey Madison's yelling, all the swearing and all that, like
(24:49):
that first big screaming stuff she does is all improvised.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
That makes sense because those men genuinely look at.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It so terrified. I know one of the other henchmen
like he's a comedian, like this is his first big
acting role.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
He's probably like he what the funniest life is the
one who got his nose?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
And because it's a movie unlike like other like I guess,
like comedy slapstick movies where like a guy gets his
nose broken and then two seconds later it suddenly fixed. Yeah,
his nose is like a big pain point throughout the
hole the rest of the film.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Most of the film is in twenty four hours, which
is so crazy that so much happens. And I really
understand when Shaalon Baker got up on that Oscar stage
when he won the Oscar for Best Editing, and that
was what he looked most excited for, and he's like, yeah,
this movie was a fucking painful thing to edit. He's like,
it was a terrible movie before I edited it. And
this is why it's one an Oscar and I would
believe that because imagine having eight days of footage of
(25:41):
those people just screaming and throwing each other across the
room and then sitting down and being like, how to
make this linear and into a movie scene?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And how eight days to thirty minutes.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, exactly, So that's incredible. Interestingly, the only injury that
happened on the whole set, there was one injury, but
it wasn't when people were throwing each other across couches
or kicking each other in the face wing like that.
It was when Mikey Madison's character is having the fight
with the other stripper in the strip club and they're
punching each other and Mikey Madison's nail snapped off. Then
(26:10):
you're a bozziv who also got an Oscar nomination for this,
which he just looked like so thrilled, which was I
kind of want him to win. But Kieran Coulkin, it
was hard because Karen Colchin was technically the lead of
his movie.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
He loved being there, like the photos of him on
the red car, butre just posing with like random objects
in the background. It's so funny.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well, I mean, yeah, you go from being like a
working actor but nothing like this to having your first
big movie role get you an Oscar nomination. It's pretty huge.
So in the fight scene between the two strippers, Mikey
Madison like, you know, you snap your nail off so
hard that it hurts. Yes, So he carried around now
glow in his pocket and it kept coming off or filming,
so you like gluw it back on for her.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's what his character would have. I know, yeah, that's
really I know.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
As I started thinking Igor and Annie going to like
kind of get together, I was like, no, no, that's
so weird. He tied her up, and he's a goon
and he's not even like a conventionally good looking mood.
So as you see their relationship developed through the movie,
you're just like, this is a but also like it worked.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It worked, and I think it was like so reflective
of real life, Like he's the only one who kind
of showed her kindness. Yeah, but like without anyone else
seeing it.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, in a way, And.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I thought that was really cleverly done. But I think
we need to talk about the parents. Oh yeah, the
parents who when the henchman couldn't get the job done.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, you're just having like laughing and just remembering this.
All they had to do was I mean, they had
a lot to do fair on them and they couldn't
find that.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, they couldn't find him for the longest time.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
That was the funniest road tip of watching Annie have
to sort of work with the henchman to the point
where she was the one breaking apart that store with
their friends being like, where is he? Because you can
see the That's what I mean. That's why I think
she had genuine feelings for him, because during that whole thing,
even though he ran away and left her, during that
whole thing they're searching, you can see in her head
she's thinking, as soon as we find Evan, like, he's
going to fix this. He's gonna tell them her husband
(28:04):
and wife, Like that's.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Why she's one years old, has.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Life and also yeah, like a rich baby who's never
had to care about anyone in his life. Of course
he's not going to care about In her head, she
wants to find him so that he can tell them
that they're going to be married. There's no doubt in
her head until they find him. Then that she's going
to be safe, which I think adds to the kind
of sadness of it all.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, So I think the tone changes very quickly from
like us laughing about their road trip, trying to find
them and parking in the audience and just walking for
like twenty minutes instead of driving. And then they find him.
He is in the strip club. He is of his face,
he's being stripped on by her nemesis.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And that was the hard thing too, because when she
leaves the strip club, it's like we're getting married. That's
probably the most pretty woman moment of it. Always she's like,
I'm out of here. I'm going to go live this big,
beautiful wife. And so when she finds out that he's
gone back to her formal workplace and he's with the
stripper who was like her name's Diamond. I think she
was friends with all the other girls that this one
girl with. Yeah, and then they have a fight, and
(29:07):
it's this extra level of humiliation that I think really
cuts her to the core as.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, especially her big like goodbye to the strip club,
right did this? They had this massive farewell for her, saying,
oh my god, she's off to be married. She doesn't
need to be here anywhere, and then she like her
husband is now back in this strip club and she
has to have this fight. And then they finally get
them together. They drive to the courthouse to get the
(29:31):
marriage and nulled, and the parents are there meeting them, and.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
They can't get it ann oled because they got married
in a different state, which is this is the point
where you feel for like the lead henchmen, where you
really feel for Touros because he's like, oh my god,
what do you mean they can't get this annulled? And
then we have the scene going on the private plane,
and it's such a brutal kind of shift from her
first initial days with him when it was all like
private planes and luxury and beautiful hotels, and that scene
(29:59):
where they're getting on the private plane to go and
have it an old where she's like to him, are
you gonna do this? You're really gonna do this? And
he turns on her, we are a fucking man, and
talk to me, what do you want me to see?
I can't understand that.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Now we must go in the fucking plane and flying
the fucking vigos.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Get it?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You get it?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So we're getting a divorce.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Of course he's.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Stupid, because until then he's either been like very loving
to her or just being out of it. And it's
the first time he's like to her, are you fucking stupid? Like,
of course we're not married.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, And it's also the first time he talked to
her like he ran away after she got tied up.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
And the whole time she's been thinking, if I can
just talk to him, if I can just like tell him,
He'll tell them we're married. And also when she goes
up to his mother and was like, Hi, I'm so
happy to be part of your family and so nice
to meet you, I was like, oh my god, I
nearly I was like your magic might I only slid
off my chair into a power the floor, like the
second hand stress I have for this woman right now.
And you just see that evil look come over the
(31:02):
mother's face and she just looks at her like she's
a peak of trash and they never stop thinking she's
trash all the way.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
And like the issue was like him something scrasfuable way though,
that's so sad, and the issue with him and his
mom is so weird, like he is obsessed with his mom.
She's like coddling him, and he's like putting his head
in her lap and she's like stroking his head.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Oh, it's so creepy. And just everything with that family,
like all the things. This is not really like a
costume movie, Like it's meant to be kind of very
like low fire in that way, but I think everyone's
kind of costuming in that the family comes in, they're
not dressed anything decadent, but they just had that very old,
old money look about them. Whereas Annie, with that character,
they tried to really make her look like Mikey Madison
(31:41):
went and lived in that part of Brooklyn before filming
to kind of get a vibe for it. They also
went and brought just a bunch of cheap makeup, but
I think she did a lot of it herself. She
was saying, so she wanted to look like it was
just a girl in her twenties who would just be
putting on like this eyeliner, Like it's not right, this
eye shadow, the tinsel in her hair at the start,
Like that's just like kind of a fun thing they
found to do. It was all meant to look like
(32:02):
everything you could just do yourself, and also very reminiscent
of what they would walk around and see the real
life women in that area wearing before they started filming.
But it's such a stark contrast with this rich, terrible family.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Oh they did that part so well. And the private
jet plane, like it just made me feel so sick.
And it was like that huge contrast of like her
being on a private jet for the first time and
then just hating it, yeah the whole time. And then
they get to the office and my absolute favorite scene
is where she signs the papers, she accepts her fate.
She signs the papers, she only gets ten k for it.
(32:36):
She doesn't even get the wedding ring. Yeah, she has
ten k, and then she just gives it to him
in front of his parents, in front of that poor
lawyer like taking all this and his dad is just cackling.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, because like which I kind of almost a lot
of people like, oh my god, I love the dad.
The dad's on her side. I'm like, the dad is
not on her side. The dad's even worse than the mom,
because at least the mom hates her and things she's trash,
but the mom is at least like this is like
a proper issue to deal with, and this woman is
being difficult and she's not going to give up, but
I have to push her. The dad thinks that Annie
is like literally less than a piece of dirt, as
(33:07):
he's going to forget about her too. Yeah, exactly. He
doesn't think this is a big deal because he thinks
she's nothing, whereas at least the mom is like she's
going to try and sue, like she won't win.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
But but I think you also see, like with him
laughing at her, you also see that he also thinks
his son is nothing. Yeah, and that like that's the
whole reason.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
The reason why.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Oh, I just love how Mark Edelstein because if you
watch his interviews, he's so funny and he's so charismatic
and charming, and I'm like, oh my god, you are
the exact opposite I hope, the exact opposite of your
character in this movie. It's just so nice because he
plays him so well. Yeah, like I genuinely hate that.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Guy, that kid so much. Yeah, that's a good performance.
It's also because we know he's just probably based on
so many real people. Have you ever read a nice
rich boy? They just don't exist, It don't exist.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
And then you see Annie being driven home by Igor
and they're in the car and she's so upset, and
I think everyone in the cinemahen we're watching that felt
that upset so deeply.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
It's also because up until that moment, Honora is like
almost like a sense overload. Like it opens in the
club and it's music and it's lights and it's people yelling.
And then it goes into the montage of them going
off to Vegas and getting married, and again it's big
and it's bright, it's colors, and it's it's sex scenes,
and it's that dance she does for him that she
choreographed herself, that sexy dance she does from at home,
all that sort of stuff. And then it's the home
(34:27):
invasion scene, and it's the chase through Brooklyn to find
him scene, and then it's a screaming on the plane scene,
you know what I mean. It's all like it's loud,
it's bright, and you're almost like I did feel like
I was in sensory overload. And then it stops and
it's just these two actors sitting very quietly in this
dingy road in this part of town. Yeah, and it
just kind of they sit in sounds for quite a
(34:47):
long time, which is always an interesting choice. When a
filmmaker decides to kind of let you sit in discomfort
for a little bit before kind of giving you a
reprieve of some dialogue. It is such a kind of
a shock to the system. And that's why you're sitting
there watching these two characters together, and it's that moment
where you kind of, I guess, maybe your thoughts on
egor change a little bit, because up until then you're like,
(35:08):
he's the evil one on he's a bit funny, oh
bit nice, And then all of a sudden you're like, wait,
are they shaping him up to be like the hero
of this story? Which I wouldn't again, I wouldn't say
he's a hero just because he gives her the ring. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Okay, So the ending, which is like that scene was
like the last scene is an ending of a movie.
And I've never done this with any other movie. But
I keep changing my mind on it, whether I liked
it or not. The first time I saw it, like
when we first initially saw it, I was just really
confused on what was happening. Oh interesting, and correct me
if I'm wrong. I'm gonna try to explain this. No
(35:40):
do it okay, So she's crying. He pulls out the
ring from his pocket because she was like.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
He stole from her. Yeah, he stole from the rich Fanily.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
He stole from the rich family to give her and
that was the one thing she wanted, right, She's like,
can I at least keep the ring, like ten k
is nothing compared to like, gave it to me, Yeah,
and traumatized me essentially, And this is my ring. So
he stole it from the family and gave it to her.
And then she decides to have sex with him, and
they're having sex, and then he goes up to choke
(36:08):
her while they're having sex, and then you can see
that she's like not enjoying it, Like she's not enjoying
that part of the sex. He stops choking her, and
then she cries in his arms, and then it's just silence.
And then the movie ends and there's nothing like it's
just silence.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah, And I.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Feel like everyone who watched this movie in the cinema
would have sat in that cinema during the credits for
at least another good toll two minutes.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, because Alsona went silent and we were silent, which
again is such a huge change from like we were
like scream laughing like half an hour prior to that. Yeah,
So then to end the movie in silence and then
like the lights came on and everyone's sitting there and
everyone's like do we leave? Like it feels weird to go.
It feels weird to leave when we're sitting in this.
And again, this is why it won Best Picture. Like
that's extraordinary filmmaking to have the audience feel that. I've
(36:53):
seen a lot of people be a little bit upset
that they had that sex scene in the car, and
the idea was that he shows her like one shred
of kindness and she has sex with him, like it's
like rewarding men for the bare minimum. But I think
it's a much more deeper, complex scene than that. I
think she gets that little bit of kindness from him,
and in her mind, like sex is like a currency
(37:14):
of reward.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
She's like, that's what I owe you back.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, She's like, well, this is what I can do
for you because this is what I do kind of thing.
I don't mean to like simplifize sex work or so
that it's sex workers all behave like that, But I
just think for what we've known of this character of
spending two hours, like so closely with her. You do
kind of see that that she sees it not as
an exchange, Like it's not in exchange for the ring.
It's a way for her to say like thank you
for everything. And also again we know that she's kind
(37:38):
of looking for a level of intimacy. Like with her
clients in the strip club, she can one hundred percent
separate her job from her feelings, but this was a
different situation because her feelings were involved.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
And the absolute breakdown. What I think about that sex
scene was it felt like both of them wanted to
have sex with each other and an intimate setting, but
they both presume the other person thought it was an exchange. Yeah,
so she had sex with him but actually wanted to
do it out of like because she wanted to turn
up because of the exchange, and he thought she was
only having sex with him for the exchange, which is
(38:09):
why he went to her. Yeah, because he was probably like, oh,
you just see this, she went.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
To treat her like an object instead of a partner.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, And then when they both realized what was happening,
and then you just see the shock on both of
their faces and then the immediate like breakdown into his
arms while they're both naked in the car. I'm pretty
sure he's still in her, yeah, and they're just like
crying in the car. Was just one of those situations
where I'm like, neither of these characters will ever get
a happy ending. Yeah, Like they're both just going to
(38:37):
be like so sad and like with their lives because
like he's going to go back to that family because
that's his job. He has to be that henchman, and
she has to work like that's her job, and she
has to go back to her like I guess quote
unquote work for family after they've just done this mass
affair well for her, And it's just that realization of
both of them that it will never work together.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah, that's so interesting because again there's been that conversation
of after that scene, like what happens did they stay together?
Did they you know, never see each other again. But
I almost think it's good that you don't get that
level of closure, like there is that idea that you
have to just make up the next part for yourself.
But then I think what you're saying about them not
being together is probably the more realistic thing, like it
wasn't meant to be this happy ending of like God,
(39:19):
but now she's found this guy and he's nice. It's
like he's been nice to her now, but that's not
gonna Yeah, that's obviously not going to be their future.
But yeah, what an ending. What a movie.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
This movie, man, I think about it all the time.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Is as your life? Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't
think that that's a dramatic thing to say.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
We have anything like it, Like I see the comparisons
are pretty women, but I think you're right, they're all
very surface level comparisons. I've just never seen anything like
this movie.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Thank you so much for listening to our brilliant, honest
review of Anora. I really hope you've got to this
stage you've watched it otherwise if we've just ruined it
for you. But as we said earlier, you can rent
it or buy it on Prime video, Apple TV. There
are some cinemas at the time of recording still playing it.
But yeah, just what a movie. And also, I mean,
Shawn Bakers made so many other movies, So once you
watch this, I highly recommend going back through his back
(40:07):
catalog and watching those movies. Too, because they're incredible.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
We've done so many other broodly honest reviews. We'll put
a link to a bunch of them in our show notes.
If there's any other movies or TV shows in the
Zeigeist that you've missed. The Spill is produced by Kimberly
Bradishit audio production by Scott Stronik, and we'll be back
here on your podcast speed at three pm on Monday.
Bye Bye.
So much. You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mamma
Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and borders that
this podcast is recorded on from Mamma Mia. Welcome to
the Spill, your daily pop culture fixed. I'm Laura Brodnick.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I'm m Venim. It is our brutally honest review time.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So yes, today's episode is a brutally honest review of Anra,
better known as the film that swept the twenty twenty
five Oscars. So we obviously raved about this movie when
we saw it at the end of last year. In
our Christmas episode about the Movies you had to Watch,
we dedicated pretty much the whole show to this and Nosferatu,
(00:55):
which I also am sad it didn't win any Oscars.
Two iconic movies, only one swept the Oscars. We tried.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I don't know if you know this, but we're actually
the reason why it won the Oscars.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well exactly, so we have been hyping this movie for
a long time. Today's episode was a very special request
by one Emily Fernam Well, it was more of a demand, actually,
you said, we're doing a brilliance review of Anurra.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I think because Obviously, we try to stick to some
sort of structure here on this bill, and we usually
try to give people like a week or a few
weeks to watch a movie because we do talk about spoilers,
and then we do our Brilliance review once everyone's watched it.
But obviously this movie has been out for a few
months now, but I think since it was announced as
the like Oscar winner, like the big winner of the
(01:39):
evening and also the most surprising winner, all my friends
can talk about is how badly they want to see
the movie. And I feel like so many more people
are now going to be watching annoy and now.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well that is also the point of our Brilliancet reviews
is that it's the movie and TV show everyone is
talking about that week, which is definitely this week Anorra
after its Oscar sweep. Is it our fault it's a
few months later, No, but also your fault watch but
also yeah, let's blame people that will go over really well.
But also it's still in limited theaters, which is really
if you want to go and watch the movies, or
(02:09):
you can now ren it or buy it on Prime
Video and Apple TV, so you can also watch in
the comfort of your own home, and that is all
we like to call a loophole, which makes it a
new movie because you can only do that recently.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, and also it is so worth the rent, like
it's so worth rented.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah. Absolutely, we've hyped it so much, as Emily is
trying to say, like, we feel like a little bit
responsible for this success of Anura because we were championing
it from the moment we saw it.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
We even mourned it when we really thought it wasn't
going to win any ward.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
It's so funny because I went on an episode of
The Quickie, which is mum MEA's news podcast, last year,
and I was doing my predictions for what was going
to come up in the awards and like Oscars and everything.
Claire Murphy asked me, like, what was going to be
the big movie, what was going to sweep the Oscars?
And I was like, well, Anora, Like nothing's going to
beat a Nourra. And I had forgotten i'd said that
because I started to doubt myself because Anor peetered out
an interest for a long time. And I now feel
(03:01):
very vindicated that it came back around because it debuted
at the carn Film Festival in May of last year,
where it just got so much critical acc but it
was also the movie that everyone was posting about, everyone
was talking about everyone, Like all the coverage from that
film festival, which is one of the most prestigious in
the world, was like, Anora is the movie of the
Year that next year. And then it also won the
(03:23):
Palm Dual, which is the big award from that season.
And then it came out and it did still get
critical acclaim, but it did kind of peter out. It
didn't become the huge kind of talking point like in
a mainstream way.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
But it's like what you said, like, it was such
a good movie, but there were also so many other
great movies.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
This, yeah, exactly. And then as it came into awards season,
it was nominated for everything, but it seemed to really
be like Amelia Perez was breaking so many records for
how many nominations it had, Demi Moore was winning everything
for the substance Conclave kind of came into the mix.
Wicked was there as the kind of big budget one
everyone was talking about, even though they didn't win too much,
and Anora was just in the background. Every so often
(04:02):
it would pop up and win something, but not really.
And then we came to the Oscars where it won
Best Picture, notoriously Best direct our Best Actress. That was
a whole huge thing, as we said, because it Demi
Moore was kind of a lock to win Best Original
Screenplay and Best Editing. And Sean Baker, who is the
creator of Anor, the writer, the director, the producer, tied
(04:24):
with Walt Disney for the most Oscar wins for one
film in a night.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The classic Walter.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That's insane. So now it's like Walt Disney and Sean Baker,
the two greats up there. So that's when the movie
is now having a second life, which I love. I mean,
obviously we're hoping you guys have watched it because we're
going to go deep into spoilers. But if anyone's like
us and watched it like three months ago, do you
want to give the people what it's about? Yeah, what's
your little tagline?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
So a little tagline for the movie chaotic, funny, sad.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, and you feel those emotions, You're like, this is chaotic,
this is really funny. Oh, this is.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Probably the exact order I just described it. So what
I really enjoyed about this movie. And I don't want
to come across as like a basic bitch. He's not
good at her.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Oh come on, we are basy bitches. Premise about podcast cross.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
But a lot of these movies that make it into
like the Oscar lineup aren't usually movies for me. Like
they're usually like these big cinematic masterpieces that you're sitting
there in the theater for like four hours and you're
not fully understanding the plot.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
The brutless just feels really attacked right now, he should
after that speech.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
You're just sitting in the cinema for hours, you're not
really sure what's going on. All you're doing is like
recognizing famous people that you know in the movie, and
this was not one of those. Firstly, I didn't recognize
a single person in this movie. Like, this movie felt
so new to me. Every single person in this movie
who acted in it was absolutely brilliant, and the concept
(05:53):
of it was just something that was so beyond my
imagination that I couldn't even think about. And I just
thought it was so interesting, so unique. It felt like
a very indie film.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, well it is an indie film. Is it an
indie film? Yeah? It was made for like a small
amount of money, but it like made that money back
like threefold at the office, and it was only filmed
over thirty seven days. Like that's a tiny, tiny production
for like a film that went on to sweep the Oscars.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Okay, See, this was just blown my mind because I
thought this was going to be massive budget because there's
like massive mansions and stuff in this But it was
just like one of those movies that I haven't felt
like such a range of Like we talked about this
recently and I really honest review of Bridge Jones and
having the range of emotions we feel, but I feel
like with something with Bridge Jones, it was like very
(06:39):
much expected emotions, whereas this one was so unexpected, Like
I never felt so seen in a movie. I've never
felt so uncomfortable in a movie. I've never laughed this
much in a movie. I never cried this much in
a movie. And then the ending was just something that
like it just sticks with you. It's one of these
films that, even though we have watched months ago, I
can't stop thinking about, Like.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Our two movies of the year, I think a lot
of the magic came from the casting, and it's just
saying like, it's a lot of people who I'd have
been acting for a while or it was like among
their first acting jobs, which I think added to it.
But I think that's also why it didn't go mainstream
in the way it would have if there was Like
Baby Girls also was a very low budget indie movie,
(07:23):
but then new factor in the Nicole Kimmen of it all,
and all of a sudden, that's mainstream and everyone's talking
about it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Same with like Adrian Brody and the Brutal Yes, and.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Mikey Madison is a very beloved actress, but not on
the level as like obviously like Anicle Kimen or anything
like that. What's interesting is that when Sean Baker, well,
he'd been wanting to write this movie for a really
long time, and he'd been talking about it to Kara
and Carl Gillian, who plays Taurus in the movie. Yeah funny, Yeah,
the fixer who gets called for everyone who's seen it,
(07:54):
which is again is hopefully all of you. So they've
worked together for many years. They'd had this idea of
wanting to write about the Russian community in New York
and Brooklyn and how that would be. Sean Baker also
said that Anora was inspired by this story he'd heard
from a friend about a Russian American newlywed who was
kidnapped for collateral. He was like, you know, that'd be
a great comedy idea for me to like just take that.
(08:14):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So it's like pretty much a true story.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I mean, I don't think it actually played out like this.
It was just like, oh, what if that kind of happened?
Did at film the basis of the story. So Sean
started writing this movie many many years ago, and interestingly,
Mikey was always kind of in his mind for the
character of a Nora. So he said that Mikey Madison
first captured his attention in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Do you remember her in that?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Oh my god, I forgot you.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
We did that movie together? No, I think we did.
Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
No, I saw it with my parents. They also, like me,
didn't understand anything that's happening.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Okay, well, the whole office went. I just assumed you
were there, so we didn't innight you. Mikey Madison's a
real standout as one of the Manson family who goes
in and yeah, tries to kill Leonardo DiCaprio. It was
her first big movie.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
She's just super crapy.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
The background actors and that are Margaret Cawley, Sydney Swep,
Austin Butler, and Mikey Madison, all kids who infamously went
on to be went on to be the new like
kind of raining people of Hollywood. So that was some
great casting there by Quentin Tarantino. So yes, Sean saw
Mikey once upon a time in Hollywood and she only
(09:19):
had like fifteen minutes of screen time. But he's like,
that actress has stolen the show and I want to
cast her in something. He then saw her and Scream
in twenty twenty two, which I'm assuming you haven't seen.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
You should watch it just for that, just for her
performances care so you'll be okay, I'll come over and
watch it with you with the lights on. That won't
save you if the killer comes later, but just you know.
And he was just like, I know that she's the
actress for this role. And she was incredible, which again
we were saying before she run the oscar. Interestingly, she
didn't know any Russian beforehand, and she learned it all
(09:51):
going into the movie, which I guess that's what actresses do.
But there's just a way that she speaks it, and
not that I speak Russian, so I wouldn't if she's
doing it correctly. But I just spent you know, a
month in Russia at one stage to my ear, so
to my ear, she sounded great. And interestingly euro Borisov,
who plays Igor, who is Russian henchman, I love all
(10:11):
the henchmen.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
He's so high, who.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Kind of like initially is like kind of the bad guy,
then flips kind of helping her out. Had never spoken
English before. So the two of yeah, I know, how
impressive are these.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
People are working together. So it starts off where we're
introduced as Mikey Madison. She plays Annie, who's the lead
of the movie, and she is a stripper. It's actually
like the first opening scene was quite like sudden to
me because I just show everything, like everything in the
strip club. You see her boss, I would say, at
(10:43):
the strip club, like leads her to a client, and
we find out the client is Yvonne, who is a
twenty one year old billionaires son.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Just the definition of an F boy, Just.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
The definition of an F boy, A definition of just
a twenty one year.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Old yeah, exactly, who's got a lot of money and
no rules.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
The reason why he wanted her was because he's Russian
and he wanted someone to speak Russian. But she's like,
I don't like speaking Russian because I'm not too good
at it, but I can understand everything you're saying, which
I I really enjoyed because I felt like it was
just real. So you just see like a different dialect
of like him speaking Russian and her answering in englandh Yeah.
I think the vulnerability of the entire strip club is
(11:21):
just so interesting because you have these men there who
are literally being grinded on essentially having sex, and these women.
It's where it's so obvious they're just doing their job, kay,
and there's like no like flirty behavior going on with them,
like they're there to get their money and then just
go home.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, she's such a professional. Like the opening scene where
you see her kind of like working the club scene
and like getting the different men and they're doing the
dancing upstairs, and interestingly none of that was like planned
and choreographed. All those initial dance scenes where you see
like the women like grinding on the men, and also
you see Anora or Annie. I guess you know she's
like to be called Anora. You see Annie dancing on
the men all that sort of stuff. That was just
(11:56):
all like Mikey Madison saying like I just want to
come in and like Sean Baker working with her and
having like a small clothes set and them saying like,
we're not going to choreograph this and plan this of
like where she's gonna put her hands or how she's
gonna dance, what the men are gonna do. It was
just like a free for all.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
So they don't have an intimate coordinator.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
No, no, no. So that conversation obviously kicked off when
she and Pamela Anderson had that on the Actress an
Acres series. Yeah, but I don't think people realize how
much that extended to like the whole movie. So for
all the sex scenes and the dance scenes and all
that sort of stuff, there was no intimacy creator on set,
which depending on who you speak to, people have a
lot of different ideas around that.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But there are some explicit intimate scenes and also it's
like the dancers in the background and the male actors,
but also the people who are watching.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
That was the big kind of pushback from people and
especially intimacy coordinators who waited on that whole controversy is
that they were saying the intimacy coordinator is not just
there for the lead actress. Obviously they're supposed to be
there for them in a huge way, but the actress
saying she doesn't feel she needs one, shouldn't negate someone
being on set because also other people, it's for the
(13:00):
camera people. It's for the extra who's been brought in
to be the man who's being danced on, Like it's
for the like the makeup people, and like it's for
the wardrobe people of like what they want to see
when they're dressing people. There's all these layers to it.
So in a way, I understand because Mikey Madison said,
like we were a really close knit tiny it's a
tiny cast, it's a tiny crew. They shot it over
(13:20):
thirty seven days. It was a lot of just like
people running around with cameras and places they rented, like
it wasn't a big production, and she thought an intimacy
coordinator would really take away from the magic and the
spontaneity of the filming experience.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So I remember, that's so specifically now you mention it,
because I remember it was like you could see in
Pamela Anderson's eyes going, you're offered that and you said no.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, She's like I've been fighting my whole career for that,
but okay, you come in, which I mean everything I've
heard this movie everyone did feel really safe and they're
a close cast, So maybe that's great, but I just
I think obviously it's a bigger conversation of as if
you want to be the one makeup artist who's like, well,
actually I would like it intimacy coordinator before I like
go and glue sequence onto this woman's fair breasts or something.
But so yeah, all that's just very loose in choreographed,
(14:02):
and it's an interesting introduction to all the characters because
you see any kind of like being very business like
when she's like trying to find clients when she's working
with them, and then you see her like interacting with
her co workers, and you see her go home and
she's just like anyone else's going home from a night
of work. Like just because it's stripping in sex work,
it doesn't mean she doesn't have a commute home, sleeps coffee.
The next dabeus being like, oh, we have to go
(14:24):
to work tonight. Like it's just it's very relatable.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, And I think what you see straight up, especially
after her encounter with Ivan, is that because he's such
a young guy with so much money, it's like he
can't fathom that this is just a job for her.
He's very much like, oh, but like now we should
be together, obvies. So he offers her like fifteen thousand
dollars like USD dollars to spend the entire week with him.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, and that it obviously includes the sex work, but
it includes also like a girlfriend experience like hanging out,
coming to parties, talking together, playing games, which is where
the pretty woman in comparisons have come in in a
huge way. What do you think of those, because that's
become quite a controversial conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I actually didn't see the comparison straight away, I think
because of the big age difference. But it's actually true
because with Ivan's case, like he is like the son
of a billionaire, but he is so extremely lonely, like
you never see him with friends, you never seen him
with his family until right.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
At the end, Rigid Gear was lonely too, Yeah, he
was lonely as well.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
But I think it's like a really good comparison because
you can see like both ends of the spectrum, Like
if you have that much money for a man, it
looks like you will always just be alone throughout your
entire life stage. It doesn't happen towards the end, and
it doesn't just happen at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, that's so true. It's interesting because a few times
when I especially when Rigidgee is lonely, Yeah, I was
like just just a cavia. I used to watch that
movie as a kid over and over and over again,
so weird, not realizing what was happening. My mum taped
out the sex scene because she taped off TV on
a VH, so she taped off the sex scene, so
it wasn't ntil. I was like twenty fivest like that said,
(16:02):
so I was almost like a producer before such amazing.
I watched it like a fairy tale, which I think
a lot of people think about Pretty Woman because it
is like it's meant to be like a classic rom
com until you're like it has been a lot. Yeah,
well that's kind of I think a lot of people
are quite angry about the comparison between Pretty Woman and Anora.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
But who maybe our younger generation after romanticize this well,
I mean, yeah, I guess there are some moments in
this where you're like, oh, that seems fun.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I guess like maybe people are thinking we're looking at
these two movies on a surface level by comparing them.
So both of these movies had this idea that it's
like a stripper sex worker with a heart of gold
who's beautiful but doesn't know it, kind of gets swept
away by this rich man who you know, decides to
give her this life that she deserves and she gets
to kind of leave this like other life behind. And
(16:47):
I guess in Pretty Woman's case that does happen, like
they go off and get married and he like rescues
her quote unquote from sex Work. Whereas I think what
people get upset about is Anora is a much more
layered movie than that and obviously doesn't have a happy
ending spoiler alert for what's coming end of this podcast,
And so they feel like it's maybe doing a disservice
to Anora to say that it's a different version of
(17:08):
Pretty Woman, but insane. It's such an easy comparison to
quickly get people in. So like after it won all
the Oscars, so many people were saying to me like,
oh my god, what's Anura? Should I watch it? What's
it about? Like so many people, even though that one
picture from the office to remember that everyone's spun around
to you and me and they're like, what's Anra about it?
I'm like, first of all, you don't listen to this
spill a little shaming for our colleagues embosses. And second
(17:31):
of all, I was like, Oh, it's about this and this,
And I'm like, oh, it's more like a hardcore pretty woman,
because it's just an easy way to explain it. Yeah,
that's why I understand why people are upset.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I think also what's upsetting with the comparison is the
idea of love. Because I think we're pretty women. You
can argue that they were genuinely in love with each.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Other, yeah, that they fall in love over that week.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Whereas an Anora you can easily see that that's not
the case for either of them. Like this twenty one
year old guy probably is in love with her what
he thinks is love, but that could have been anyone
who walked into that room when he met her and
he just needed someone, Like he's so young and he's
so vulnerable, and he has all this money that he
just wants someone there. And for her, she's in love
with the lifestyle that he could offer her, not necessarily him.
(18:11):
So when like it all blows up, she's mourning like
what her life could have been as a person exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
But I do think that's an interesting thing because that's
something that's come up as well, like was she in
love with his money or was she in love with him?
And I actually think it's a little bit of both.
Like I think initially obviously it's the money, but I
think once they spend time together and he's like at
first the sex is bad and she's having to kind
of teach him like no, no, do this, do that
that kind of stuff, which if you're a sex worker,
(18:40):
you know you're there to kind of like work with
a client. So I think as they start having conversations
about their sex life, if it comes a bit more couply.
And what's also interesting is that Mikey Madison tried to
really put in the work when she was preparing to
be a sex worker. One thing is like she went
to like a stripper camp where she learned to do
all the pole dancing because she did all that in
the movie and was trained by a bunch of women
(19:00):
who do pole dancing. But she also like read a
lot about sex work. She talked to sex workers, and
something that people really loved her for at her Oscars
speech was that she thanked the sex worker community. People
get angry about and I'm like, get out of here.
You can't take their story and their experience. Why would
you make a movie? Or they're like, oh, she's glamorizing
sex work, and it's like, that's just thanking the people
(19:20):
who helped you out. Can you mention if she didn't
say anything and she took these women's stories, used it
for a movie, won an oscar, then didn't say anything,
It's like, not glad, it's also a real thing. This
is what kind of makes a story so compelling. I
think there is a moment there where she starts to
fall in love with the idea of like being taken
care of, and you know, he's telling her even though
(19:40):
he's a creepy little kid a lot of the time,
Like once they start talking and he's asking her questions
about herself, and once Avinya starts really kind of you know,
talking to her and sort of like, I want us
to be married, I wantus to be a couple. You
can sort of see that she loves the idea of
being in a partnership and being taken care of and
someone sort of seeing who she is as much as
she's also loving all the money because half the time, like, yes,
(20:02):
they go off and do crazy things up most of
the time they're either having sex upstairs all their downsairs
on the couch and she's watching him play video games.
To love someone for that, that's true. At least Richard
Gere has taken her to the polo and on private jet.
So maybe she.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Loves just doing nothing because I feel like it would
have been the first time in her life where she
had the privilege of just doing that.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Most things she's just lying on his chest, talking to him,
and a few times she's like is this all we're doing?
But mostly I think it's that safety. Also, as the
next sesson we're getting into when it gets found out
what's happened all the Russian henchmen arrive. One thing she
gets really upset about is she's like, this is my house,
this is my house, like she's found this safe place.
And when the Henchman come in, which is a great scene,
(20:42):
I think that's when things get sort of messed up.
So the henchman scene, can I just say, I've never
seen you react to a scene in a movie like before,
and I've watched you in one of my hope things
to do in a movie is to watch the movie,
but to watch Emily because you just have a visceral reaction,
like the last Magic Mike movie where I looked over
and you just slipped off your chair and you curled
(21:03):
into a little boar law. I don't like that, Maybe
because you were upset by the naked man even though
it was just one bear chest. There was no nudity
in that moment.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Oh my god, you should have seen me in one
of them days you lost it.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Mostly started to get to see your reaction. So we're
watching Anura, We're all into it and loving like everything
about the movie. And then obviously once Annie and Vanya
are in their little love bubble and it gets found
out and the henchmen arrived, then the movie kind of
kicks into this like action overdrive. You were like laughing
so hard, you were making the cinema chairs because they
(21:38):
were joined together shake so hard.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was the best scene I've ever experienced in my life.
So they just get back from Vegas. They got married
in Vegas. His parents find out about the marriage, so
they send his godfather, who was in this church.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I think performing a baptism or something, and he just
kind of flicks some more of the baby. He's like, oh,
you'll be fine, call you and.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Saying you have to get you right now. You do it.
So these three men, basically we have the godfather, who
I guess.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Is the leader, the leader of the henchman.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Then these two henchmen come to the mansion because they
have to convince Ivan and Annie to get an annulment,
to annul the wedding. They can't do it a divorce
because that'll be a strain on their family's name, so
it has to be a nullment, and then chaos absolutely insues.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Oh my gosh, insane.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So what I really liked about this scene was that
immediately Annie starts fighting with them, like she is immediately angry.
She doesn't want these men in her house. Ivan's kind
of like angry at the start, and then you see
it tapering away when he realizes that this is real,
but she's just so so aggressive, and then it's one
of those things where the audience has to work out
(22:51):
the level of danger they're in, yeah, which I thought
was really interesting because you see so many movies and
TV shows with these big, like fight scenes and these
physical brawls, and they're either really really quick or really
really gory and overdrawn, really scary, and this one was
just the perfect in between, because you're like, who are
these henchmen? Are they actually really dangerous? Will they actually
(23:13):
hurt her? Will they actually do something worse and hurt her?
And what happens is that she just takes control of
the situation. She just tarts beating the hell out of
these fully grown men. And because they're so scared, and
also they're like, I guess we can say that in
their heart, they're nice men. Yeah, So they don't want
to physically hurt her, so all they do is just
(23:35):
try to restrain her, which is another form of like
physically hurting a woman.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, And it's just so bloody funny the way she
fights versus the way and some of.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
The way thing like some part of your brain is
telling you this woman is being like attacked, they're restraining her.
She's screaming, she's terrified. Yet we are in the audience
are hysterically screaming laughing because I think just the absurdity
of the situation and also just the way like that
is masterful, that whole scene.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So it took because so you can tell they've never
done this before.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I know, they're like the is ye, like the do't
want to go. It's like put her hands behind her
back not in the front, like and then she's like
breaks his nose and it's a whole thing. So that
whole scene is twenty eight minutes long, which could have
been another twenty minutes no I know, but usually for
a movie that would be like literally five minutes. Like
that is crazy to have a scene like that be
twenty eight minutes in a movie, but it just works
(24:26):
so well. It took eight days to shoot and they
only shot for thirty seven days, so that's like quite
a bit of chunk of time. And they were just
like again, nothing planned, nothing. They were obviously scripting in
there and some kind of idea of what they were
going to do, but most of it it's wonder someone
to get their nose broken for real, glass, It was
a lot of improv In fact, that whole scene that
Mikey Madison's yelling, all the swearing and all that, like
(24:49):
that first big screaming stuff she does is all improvised.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
That makes sense because those men genuinely look at.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It so terrified. I know one of the other henchmen
like he's a comedian, like this is his first big
acting role.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
He's probably like he what the funniest life is the
one who got his nose?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
And because it's a movie unlike like other like I guess,
like comedy slapstick movies where like a guy gets his
nose broken and then two seconds later it suddenly fixed. Yeah,
his nose is like a big pain point throughout the
hole the rest of the film.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Most of the film is in twenty four hours, which
is so crazy that so much happens. And I really
understand when Shaalon Baker got up on that Oscar stage
when he won the Oscar for Best Editing, and that
was what he looked most excited for, and he's like, yeah,
this movie was a fucking painful thing to edit. He's like,
it was a terrible movie before I edited it. And
this is why it's one an Oscar and I would
believe that because imagine having eight days of footage of
(25:41):
those people just screaming and throwing each other across the
room and then sitting down and being like, how to
make this linear and into a movie scene?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And how eight days to thirty minutes.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, exactly, So that's incredible. Interestingly, the only injury that
happened on the whole set, there was one injury, but
it wasn't when people were throwing each other across couches
or kicking each other in the face wing like that.
It was when Mikey Madison's character is having the fight
with the other stripper in the strip club and they're
punching each other and Mikey Madison's nail snapped off. Then
(26:10):
you're a bozziv who also got an Oscar nomination for this,
which he just looked like so thrilled, which was I
kind of want him to win. But Kieran Coulkin, it
was hard because Karen Colchin was technically the lead of
his movie.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
He loved being there, like the photos of him on
the red car, butre just posing with like random objects
in the background. It's so funny.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well, I mean, yeah, you go from being like a
working actor but nothing like this to having your first
big movie role get you an Oscar nomination. It's pretty huge.
So in the fight scene between the two strippers, Mikey
Madison like, you know, you snap your nail off so
hard that it hurts. Yes, So he carried around now
glow in his pocket and it kept coming off or filming,
so you like gluw it back on for her.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's what his character would have. I know, yeah, that's
really I know.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
As I started thinking Igor and Annie going to like
kind of get together, I was like, no, no, that's
so weird. He tied her up, and he's a goon
and he's not even like a conventionally good looking mood.
So as you see their relationship developed through the movie,
you're just like, this is a but also like it worked.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It worked, and I think it was like so reflective
of real life, Like he's the only one who kind
of showed her kindness. Yeah, but like without anyone else
seeing it.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, in a way, And.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I thought that was really cleverly done. But I think
we need to talk about the parents. Oh yeah, the
parents who when the henchman couldn't get the job done.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, you're just having like laughing and just remembering this.
All they had to do was I mean, they had
a lot to do fair on them and they couldn't
find that.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, they couldn't find him for the longest time.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
That was the funniest road tip of watching Annie have
to sort of work with the henchman to the point
where she was the one breaking apart that store with
their friends being like, where is he? Because you can
see the That's what I mean. That's why I think
she had genuine feelings for him, because during that whole thing,
even though he ran away and left her, during that
whole thing they're searching, you can see in her head
she's thinking, as soon as we find Evan, like, he's
going to fix this. He's gonna tell them her husband
(28:04):
and wife, Like that's.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Why she's one years old, has.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Life and also yeah, like a rich baby who's never
had to care about anyone in his life. Of course
he's not going to care about In her head, she
wants to find him so that he can tell them
that they're going to be married. There's no doubt in
her head until they find him. Then that she's going
to be safe, which I think adds to the kind
of sadness of it all.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, So I think the tone changes very quickly from
like us laughing about their road trip, trying to find
them and parking in the audience and just walking for
like twenty minutes instead of driving. And then they find him.
He is in the strip club. He is of his face,
he's being stripped on by her nemesis.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And that was the hard thing too, because when she
leaves the strip club, it's like we're getting married. That's
probably the most pretty woman moment of it. Always she's like,
I'm out of here. I'm going to go live this big,
beautiful wife. And so when she finds out that he's
gone back to her formal workplace and he's with the
stripper who was like her name's Diamond. I think she
was friends with all the other girls that this one
girl with. Yeah, and then they have a fight, and
(29:07):
it's this extra level of humiliation that I think really
cuts her to the core as.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, especially her big like goodbye to the strip club,
right did this? They had this massive farewell for her, saying,
oh my god, she's off to be married. She doesn't
need to be here anywhere, and then she like her
husband is now back in this strip club and she
has to have this fight. And then they finally get
them together. They drive to the courthouse to get the
(29:31):
marriage and nulled, and the parents are there meeting them, and.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
They can't get it ann oled because they got married
in a different state, which is this is the point
where you feel for like the lead henchmen, where you
really feel for Touros because he's like, oh my god,
what do you mean they can't get this annulled? And
then we have the scene going on the private plane,
and it's such a brutal kind of shift from her
first initial days with him when it was all like
private planes and luxury and beautiful hotels, and that scene
(29:59):
where they're getting on the private plane to go and
have it an old where she's like to him, are
you gonna do this? You're really gonna do this? And
he turns on her, we are a fucking man, and
talk to me, what do you want me to see?
I can't understand that.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Now we must go in the fucking plane and flying
the fucking vigos.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Get it?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You get it?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So we're getting a divorce.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Of course he's.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Stupid, because until then he's either been like very loving
to her or just being out of it. And it's
the first time he's like to her, are you fucking stupid? Like,
of course we're not married.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, And it's also the first time he talked to
her like he ran away after she got tied up.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
And the whole time she's been thinking, if I can
just talk to him, if I can just like tell him,
He'll tell them we're married. And also when she goes
up to his mother and was like, Hi, I'm so
happy to be part of your family and so nice
to meet you, I was like, oh my god, I
nearly I was like your magic might I only slid
off my chair into a power the floor, like the
second hand stress I have for this woman right now.
And you just see that evil look come over the
(31:02):
mother's face and she just looks at her like she's
a peak of trash and they never stop thinking she's
trash all the way.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
And like the issue was like him something scrasfuable way though,
that's so sad, and the issue with him and his
mom is so weird, like he is obsessed with his mom.
She's like coddling him, and he's like putting his head
in her lap and she's like stroking his head.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Oh, it's so creepy. And just everything with that family,
like all the things. This is not really like a
costume movie, Like it's meant to be kind of very
like low fire in that way, but I think everyone's
kind of costuming in that the family comes in, they're
not dressed anything decadent, but they just had that very old,
old money look about them. Whereas Annie, with that character,
they tried to really make her look like Mikey Madison
(31:41):
went and lived in that part of Brooklyn before filming
to kind of get a vibe for it. They also
went and brought just a bunch of cheap makeup, but
I think she did a lot of it herself. She
was saying, so she wanted to look like it was
just a girl in her twenties who would just be
putting on like this eyeliner, Like it's not right, this
eye shadow, the tinsel in her hair at the start,
Like that's just like kind of a fun thing they
found to do. It was all meant to look like
(32:02):
everything you could just do yourself, and also very reminiscent
of what they would walk around and see the real
life women in that area wearing before they started filming.
But it's such a stark contrast with this rich, terrible family.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Oh they did that part so well. And the private
jet plane, like it just made me feel so sick.
And it was like that huge contrast of like her
being on a private jet for the first time and
then just hating it, yeah the whole time. And then
they get to the office and my absolute favorite scene
is where she signs the papers, she accepts her fate.
She signs the papers, she only gets ten k for it.
(32:36):
She doesn't even get the wedding ring. Yeah, she has
ten k, and then she just gives it to him
in front of his parents, in front of that poor
lawyer like taking all this and his dad is just cackling.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, because like which I kind of almost a lot
of people like, oh my god, I love the dad.
The dad's on her side. I'm like, the dad is
not on her side. The dad's even worse than the mom,
because at least the mom hates her and things she's trash,
but the mom is at least like this is like
a proper issue to deal with, and this woman is
being difficult and she's not going to give up, but
I have to push her. The dad thinks that Annie
is like literally less than a piece of dirt, as
(33:07):
he's going to forget about her too. Yeah, exactly. He
doesn't think this is a big deal because he thinks
she's nothing, whereas at least the mom is like she's
going to try and sue, like she won't win.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
But but I think you also see, like with him
laughing at her, you also see that he also thinks
his son is nothing. Yeah, and that like that's the
whole reason.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
The reason why.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Oh, I just love how Mark Edelstein because if you
watch his interviews, he's so funny and he's so charismatic
and charming, and I'm like, oh my god, you are
the exact opposite I hope, the exact opposite of your
character in this movie. It's just so nice because he
plays him so well. Yeah, like I genuinely hate that.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Guy, that kid so much. Yeah, that's a good performance.
It's also because we know he's just probably based on
so many real people. Have you ever read a nice
rich boy? They just don't exist, It don't exist.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
And then you see Annie being driven home by Igor
and they're in the car and she's so upset, and
I think everyone in the cinemahen we're watching that felt
that upset so deeply.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
It's also because up until that moment, Honora is like
almost like a sense overload. Like it opens in the
club and it's music and it's lights and it's people yelling.
And then it goes into the montage of them going
off to Vegas and getting married, and again it's big
and it's bright, it's colors, and it's it's sex scenes,
and it's that dance she does for him that she
choreographed herself, that sexy dance she does from at home,
all that sort of stuff. And then it's the home
(34:27):
invasion scene, and it's the chase through Brooklyn to find
him scene, and then it's a screaming on the plane scene,
you know what I mean. It's all like it's loud,
it's bright, and you're almost like I did feel like
I was in sensory overload. And then it stops and
it's just these two actors sitting very quietly in this
dingy road in this part of town. Yeah, and it
just kind of they sit in sounds for quite a
(34:47):
long time, which is always an interesting choice. When a
filmmaker decides to kind of let you sit in discomfort
for a little bit before kind of giving you a
reprieve of some dialogue. It is such a kind of
a shock to the system. And that's why you're sitting
there watching these two characters together, and it's that moment
where you kind of, I guess, maybe your thoughts on
egor change a little bit, because up until then you're like,
(35:08):
he's the evil one on he's a bit funny, oh
bit nice, And then all of a sudden you're like, wait,
are they shaping him up to be like the hero
of this story? Which I wouldn't again, I wouldn't say
he's a hero just because he gives her the ring. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Okay, So the ending, which is like that scene was
like the last scene is an ending of a movie.
And I've never done this with any other movie. But
I keep changing my mind on it, whether I liked
it or not. The first time I saw it, like
when we first initially saw it, I was just really
confused on what was happening. Oh interesting, and correct me
if I'm wrong. I'm gonna try to explain this. No
(35:40):
do it okay, So she's crying. He pulls out the
ring from his pocket because she was like.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
He stole from her. Yeah, he stole from the rich Fanily.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
He stole from the rich family to give her and
that was the one thing she wanted, right, She's like,
can I at least keep the ring, like ten k
is nothing compared to like, gave it to me, Yeah,
and traumatized me essentially, And this is my ring. So
he stole it from the family and gave it to her.
And then she decides to have sex with him, and
they're having sex, and then he goes up to choke
(36:08):
her while they're having sex, and then you can see
that she's like not enjoying it, Like she's not enjoying
that part of the sex. He stops choking her, and
then she cries in his arms, and then it's just silence.
And then the movie ends and there's nothing like it's
just silence.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah, And I.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Feel like everyone who watched this movie in the cinema
would have sat in that cinema during the credits for
at least another good toll two minutes.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, because Alsona went silent and we were silent, which
again is such a huge change from like we were
like scream laughing like half an hour prior to that. Yeah,
So then to end the movie in silence and then
like the lights came on and everyone's sitting there and
everyone's like do we leave? Like it feels weird to go.
It feels weird to leave when we're sitting in this.
And again, this is why it won Best Picture. Like
that's extraordinary filmmaking to have the audience feel that. I've
(36:53):
seen a lot of people be a little bit upset
that they had that sex scene in the car, and
the idea was that he shows her like one shred
of kindness and she has sex with him, like it's
like rewarding men for the bare minimum. But I think
it's a much more deeper, complex scene than that. I
think she gets that little bit of kindness from him,
and in her mind, like sex is like a currency
(37:14):
of reward.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
She's like, that's what I owe you back.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, She's like, well, this is what I can do
for you because this is what I do kind of thing.
I don't mean to like simplifize sex work or so
that it's sex workers all behave like that, But I
just think for what we've known of this character of
spending two hours, like so closely with her. You do
kind of see that that she sees it not as
an exchange, Like it's not in exchange for the ring.
It's a way for her to say like thank you
for everything. And also again we know that she's kind
(37:38):
of looking for a level of intimacy. Like with her
clients in the strip club, she can one hundred percent
separate her job from her feelings, but this was a
different situation because her feelings were involved.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
And the absolute breakdown. What I think about that sex
scene was it felt like both of them wanted to
have sex with each other and an intimate setting, but
they both presume the other person thought it was an exchange. Yeah,
so she had sex with him but actually wanted to
do it out of like because she wanted to turn
up because of the exchange, and he thought she was
only having sex with him for the exchange, which is
(38:09):
why he went to her. Yeah, because he was probably like, oh,
you just see this, she went.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
To treat her like an object instead of a partner.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, And then when they both realized what was happening,
and then you just see the shock on both of
their faces and then the immediate like breakdown into his
arms while they're both naked in the car. I'm pretty
sure he's still in her, yeah, and they're just like
crying in the car. Was just one of those situations
where I'm like, neither of these characters will ever get
a happy ending. Yeah, Like they're both just going to
(38:37):
be like so sad and like with their lives because
like he's going to go back to that family because
that's his job. He has to be that henchman, and
she has to work like that's her job, and she
has to go back to her like I guess quote
unquote work for family after they've just done this mass
affair well for her, And it's just that realization of
both of them that it will never work together.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah, that's so interesting because again there's been that conversation
of after that scene, like what happens did they stay together?
Did they you know, never see each other again. But
I almost think it's good that you don't get that
level of closure, like there is that idea that you
have to just make up the next part for yourself.
But then I think what you're saying about them not
being together is probably the more realistic thing, like it
wasn't meant to be this happy ending of like God,
(39:19):
but now she's found this guy and he's nice. It's
like he's been nice to her now, but that's not
gonna Yeah, that's obviously not going to be their future.
But yeah, what an ending. What a movie.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
This movie, man, I think about it all the time.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Is as your life? Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't
think that that's a dramatic thing to say.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
We have anything like it, Like I see the comparisons
are pretty women, but I think you're right, they're all
very surface level comparisons. I've just never seen anything like
this movie.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Thank you so much for listening to our brilliant, honest
review of Anora. I really hope you've got to this
stage you've watched it otherwise if we've just ruined it
for you. But as we said earlier, you can rent
it or buy it on Prime video, Apple TV. There
are some cinemas at the time of recording still playing it.
But yeah, just what a movie. And also, I mean,
Shawn Bakers made so many other movies, So once you
watch this, I highly recommend going back through his back
(40:07):
catalog and watching those movies. Too, because they're incredible.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
We've done so many other broodly honest reviews. We'll put
a link to a bunch of them in our show notes.
If there's any other movies or TV shows in the
Zeigeist that you've missed. The Spill is produced by Kimberly
Bradishit audio production by Scott Stronik, and we'll be back
here on your podcast speed at three pm on Monday.
Bye Bye.
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