Let’s Take a Minute to Appreciate the Gangsters in ‘Anora’

Buster Keaton Police officers (1922), silent-film Star walks past two police officers and they hit each other in the head and pass out. Still very funny – slapstick comedy in its purest form. And if there’s one thing entertainers have learned since the first fool stepped on a banana peel, it’s that nothing is funnier than a clown.

I am happy to inform you that this particular genre of comedy has not lost its appeal. In the new movie of the stars Anora, directed by Sean Baker (Red Rocket) focuses on a particular type of clown family tree: servants. You may know them as vagabonds. They are joking yes-sayers who reluctantly follow orders and lament their low status in the criminal hierarchy. Honestly, outcasts are my favorite characters in almost every setting. But there were no mob grumblings This it’s been funny ever since the sopranosIn the famous “Pine Barrens” episode, Michael Imperioli and Tony Sirico ate mayonnaise packets to survive their night in the woods. No disrespect the sopranos casting, dead treeWilliam Sanderson or friends‘ Joe Pesci, but we need to make some room on Mount Rushmore for comedy gangsters.

If you’re somehow learning this for the first time AnoraThe film follows an exotic dancer and sex worker named Anora (Mikey Madison), or “Ani” as the character prefers. She falls in love with one of her clients, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian billionaire; She parties 24/7, squanders her parents’ money, and orgasms so quickly that Anora barely looks like she’s working at all. This is young love. Unlimited cash. But when the couple gets married in Vegas, all hell breaks loose.

Enter stage left: three of the funniest men you’ve ever seen on screen. Ivan’s godfather, Toros (Karren Karaguilan), swears more than an Orthodox priest; Armenian muscleman Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), who cannot make a single decision for himself; and Igor (Yura Borisov), the quiet and sullen grandmother’s son who wishes he could stay home on any given day.

Ivan’s parents call in the hilarious trio to force the young couple to annul their marriage and save their family’s name from the scandalous pairing. Unsurprisingly, when they arrive, Ivan bursts out the door. Anora goes crazy and beats up the goons as if she’s starring in a particularly violent episode. tom and jerry. Garnick breaks his nose, falls and shatters the glass table. Igor was bitten! Taurus is stunned by the chaos in front of him. If this event occurred on Looney Tunes-verseAll three would have foot-long strips coming out of the tops of their skulls and tiny birds floating around their heads. I loved every minute of it.

The trio hops in the car to form a search party for Ivan, and of course, that’s it. Really hits the fan. Toros refuses to let Garnick go to the hospital to repair his broken nose, so Garnick takes painkillers and vomits all over Toros’ car. Later, Toros enters a restaurant and berates the customers about Ivan’s whereabouts. Here’s a fun fact: The diners are real people who have no idea they’re in a movie. An angry customer curses at them in Russian and shouts: “How many times have I told you that I didn’t see the child? We are trying to have dinner here!” Baker said jokingly Vulture of that very real moment, “They wanted to help him find his lost son.”

The film benefits from a style reminiscent of the Safdie brothers’ style. Uncut Stones (2019), in which relatively unknown actors and average Joes take on comedy parts. Anora’The gangster trio have much more acting experience than Wayne Diamond or the real-life jewelers. stones. But they’re still good at delivering laugh after laugh because they feel like it real men. Their relative obscurity is part of the joke, and falling on their asses occasionally doesn’t hurt either.

Of course, the couple at the center carries the emotional burden. Anora. I’m sure if you’ve already heard about the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, it’s probably because of the film’s judgment-free look at sex work, its ending (which I won’t spoil here), or Mikey Madison’s electric lead performance. I’m sure you’ve read about the Oscar excitement, too. All true! However Anora‘s most dramatic events fail to succeed quite a few that hard without the humor in between.

Anora’s situation is horrifying. She marries a family she knows nothing about and gets kidnapped until the gangsters can figure out their annulment. Baker created an otherwise terrifying predicament for a young woman. Luckily, the filmmaker doesn’t go to any really dark places; instead, the character’s reluctance to grasp the problem he is in is used for laughs. The three stooges fail over and over again. They’re just as confused as she is, and they keep the audience from thinking Anora is in any real danger. Call them bad guys, but my three new favorite punks AnoraThe real heroes of.