Thank god for this article - I had to pay to get past the firewall just to restore my sanity. Anora was so bad that I had to stop halfway through with the battery and kidnapping of a screaming woman played for screwball laughs. Apparently that battery and kidnapping and screaming goes on for another 28 minutes.
It’s a film tailor-made for a clique of pseudo-intellectuals who fetishize ugliness and spit on beauty. They don’t want cinema for the masses; they want their own little smug club where the price of admission is pretending to enjoy soulless, dreary, joyless “art.”
Yes but since they are rich but not intellectual, they also want to create some sort of nobility around wealth. Anora has to worship the big mansion and expensive hotel suites.
Anora's marriage of course must be fake since know your place girl. The battery and kidnapping of Anora can be played for laughs because know your place girl.
It's dreary, joyless "art" but not soulless. The soul of this movie is that only money and power really exist - the opposite of I’m Still Here - Anora is almost like "I'm Not Here".