Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing 
Ani (Mikey Madison) is a stripper/sex worker who thinks she's hit the lottery when she meets Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch. Ivan spends money like water, loving the freedom that comes from being young, rich, and 8000 miles away from his parents. He knows it's his last trip to America before joining his dad's company and wants to make the most of it. So he flies Ani to Vegas and marries her. And then posts it on social media because he's an idiot. His mother (Darya Ekamasova) immediately dispatches Toros (Karran Karagulian), who was supposed to be supervising Ivan, to have the marriage annulled. Ivan bolts, leaving Ani to deal with the fallout.
There is nothing original here and I have no idea why this got six nominations when Hustlers --a film about strippers directed and written by women starring a woman of color and based on a true story-- didn't get a single one. I mean, I have an idea why, obviously, a film about a stripper written and directed by a man starring a white woman got nominated, but it's not polite.
Sean Baker is a rising star whose previous films have focused on marginalized people. That is good and I fully support that. Anora feels regressive and more like a story that would have been made in the early 2000s. Madison doesn't bring anything really noteworthy to the character, other than being young, beautiful, and willing to be traumatized on screen (always Academy catnip). Ani grimly clings to a fantasy so hard it moves past naïveté and into delusion, all while being completely unsympathetic. Points for realism, I guess, because everyone knows a girl like this, but most people have the good sense to cut ties with them pretty quickly.
But by far the most egregious nomination is for film editing. This movie is two hours and 18 minutes long and it could have been cut by a third. So many scenes were repetitive and added nothing we didn't already know. Baker probably could have hired out for this instead of trying to do it himself.
Yuriy Borisov is a literal angel and deserves this nomination. #TeamIgor You deserved so much better, my darling.
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