Best of 2024, #9: Anora

It was embarrassing watching this movie with my wife, but not as embarrassing as it would have been watching it with anyone else! There are maybe 10 different lapdance scenes and 20 different sex scenes? It was all a little much. But in the second half of the movie, the heroine got to keep her clothes on more and the movie became quite funny and charming. Mikey Madison does a great job as a very foul-mouthed Cinderella-story heroine and I hope this earns her some roles that don’t require this, uh, much of her.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Heroes Don’t Call Their Lawyers

Anora, who has married a billionaire’s son without a prenup and now faces annulment, would have ended up a lot better off if she had ever called a divorce lawyer, but of course that would have brought the movie to a screeching halt. Great heroes tend to be those that don’t call their lawyers, even when they really ought to. Sometimes a great story (this episode comes to mind) consists of the viewer just pleading to the screen saying “Lawyer! Lawyer! Lawyer!” the whole time. (Anora finally mentions a lawyer as the movie is almost over, but by that point she’s too firmly in the clutch of the villains and has to meekly back down.)