erikstuborn

They've been preparing us for the end for years. If we haven't seen the signs, it's because we haven't reviewed the listings for movies, series, novels, from the last... let's say twenty years... And this is one more.

Disinformation, civil war, destruction. We have made many enemies over the years. Now these enemies are not misinforming us, but rather using the best weapon of misinformation: information overload.

This film is part of that toxic 'information'. What it says is 'be prepared, for your end is near'. Now it's up to us to decide whether that narrative is real or just the delusion of millionaire producers trying to make money while fulfilling their devastating mission: to demoralize the population. How do you feel about it?

A repeat of the truth-lie scheme already seen in the first episode. It loses credibility at times. Especially after a brilliant second episode, a tribute (whatever anyone says) to Buster Keaton's slapstick comedy. The frenetic urge to lie and look good in front of someone else only lasts for one episode. If the pattern repeats itself, as I am doing right now, I think The Studio is going to lose a viewer, although after all the Emmys, I suppose that will be a source of laughter for them.

It's a shame that an artist like Sean Baker, who has devoted much of his work to dignifying and giving visibility to sex workers (in his previous films 'Starlet' and 'Red Rocket', for example), has chosen such a hackneyed and predictable story for his big-budget film.

One of the interesting things about Baker's work was his ability to create unresolved tension; the sense of permanent unease that his characters lived with (always walking a tightrope) was what gave his films their value and power.

In Anora, everything seems easy, until, predictably, it stops being so. First surprise for a Baker film: you see the disaster coming. It doesn't take you by surprise. Then pandemonium breaks out (with more than twenty minutes of the film in which everyone screams), unbearable in a way that any other director (Guy Ritchie, for example) would have resolved in three minutes with two well-aimed punches.

That means it's a film that isn't 'serious', that the thugs aren't serious, the oligarchs aren't serious, the sex workers aren't serious. It's all frivolous and banal, therefore implausible and dispensable.

I think you should go back to low-budget cinema and revisit your lumpen characters, where you found your narrative style and inspiration. This world of rich people isn't for you, Sean.