louis_ghidotti

Made by violent misogynists for young men and especially for young women. It reflects the broader cultural/political climate in the United States, as the country slides further into fascism. This rise is also linked to the reinforcement of rigid gender roles, the promotion of so-called "traditional" values, and the idealization of submissive, "traditional" femininity - concepts such as bimboification, the tradwife archetype, and "divine femininity." These trends parallel the disturbing empowerment of dangerous, abusive men, fueled by conservative pundits and figures within the manosphere and political spheres.

Igor is not the prince charming people interpreted him to be - that last scene was so horrible. Ani is not an empowered character; she's in visible and loud distress a lot of the time - it was unsettling to hear her screaming so convincingly for so long and then we're supposed to laugh at these creepy giant men repeatedly violating her for being bumbling slapstick fools or something? A film that's supposedly about her but her character has no depth, arc, ultimate goal, etc. We never learn why she rejects being called Anora. She struggles, but by the end, she fights for nothing. There is no clear reason for why she is who she is.

If this movie was made by women and/or sex workers, it would be a completely different story. But looking at who made this, HOW they made this (no intimacy coordinator on set despite it being mikey madison's first film of this nature), and the lack of any real positive/safe messaging (WHY was this made? And why did THEY make this??) - hey i hated this.

The first part, with the kids, is pretty good. The film should have ended there for the sake of audience. And Gilles Lellouche would have directed one of the best French teenage romances of the decade.

The rest of the movie, the second act, is horrible. The actors François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos lack chemistry together, their acting in this movie are bland and without compromise. I suspect both actors should start rethinking their own careers in French cinema once the two newcomers Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah outshine them and steal the show in this confusing mediocre movie.

At first it seems the movie strikes as a modern take of The Count of Monte Cristo .. I mean the old story of the wronged young rebel guy who returns for revenge and the search for his loved one. However it falls out with exaggerated and caricatured toxic masculinity. A stylized and tacky male gaze. And in the half and end of second act the plot ends up losing credibility.

The problem, beyond the burden of everything, is the strange determination that the film shows in claiming originality in each shot it offers without achieving it even once. Every time it comes to deciding,it always opt for the most formal, the most obvious. What we have already seen. And so, it repeats, for three hours of the closest thing to a French blockbuster, with a good marketing and PR behind it, it is that the French audiences are going to see this year.

The film mixes good technical elements, such as production, direction and acting, with a poor script. The story works based on the greatest possible narrative conventions, such as deaths occurring in sequence without the slightest police investigation work to find the clear and obvious culprit. The protagonist's power of seduction only exists because it does. There is no development of the relationship until it reaches the sex scenes, it simply happens when the script requires it and the protagonist needs it. These disturbing scenes are just strange. Strange and disgusting. It's not shocking or anything, you just regret wasting your time watching a work so bad and hostile to good art and the slightest sense of aesthetics. Social criticism of the habits of the bourgeois class in contrast to the poorest layers of society is as deep as a saucer. Too cliché and other films, like Parasite, Triangle of Sadness, did it much better.

And the final scene was like hitting the final nail in the coffin of what I consider the worst film of the year. Simply horrible.