An explosive New York thriller combined with a call for sex workers, all sprinkled with caustic humor: this is the showlongsPalme d’Or at the last Cannes Film Festival. A film that could take most of the next Oscar ceremony thanks to the energy of its lead actress, Mikey Madison.
Described as a pretty woman Punk and trash, this powerfully driven 2h18 film begins like a fairy tale. Anora (Mikey Madison), a call girl at a seedy New York club, meets Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.
Anora knows fragments of Russian: her grandmother, an immigrant to the United States, never learned English. We trust the client. She manages to take his number. They see each other again. Anora discovers money and, without knowing what to do with it, a life of celebration and carelessness.
As Vanya’s parents remain in Russia on business, they entrust the priest of the local Orthodox church to watch over Vanya. But when Anora and Vanya fall in love and decide to get married in Las Vegas, the parents try to intervene.
While a trio of gangsters sent by Vanya’s parents arrive at his house to annul this union, he flees, leaving Anora alone in his hands. Then a chase begins through the twists and turns of the Russian-speaking community of Coney Island.
“A film of humanity”
Sean Baker had tackled a similar theme in his previous films. Tangerine, The Florida project AND red rocket. Works that present characters who live on the margins of society and exude humanity. but with longsoffers his most comical film to date and takes unexpected paths.
“This film is magnificent, full of humanity (…) It broke our hearts,” declared jury president and director Greta Gerwig last May before presenting him with his Palme d’Or.
“We are all fascinated” by sex work, Sean Baker told AFP during the Cannes Film Festival. During his acceptance speech, the director dedicated his film “to all sex workers.” With longswants to change the way people look at these “unfairly stigmatized” people.
The director intends to “explore to infinity” this topic, already addressed in four of his other films. If you don’t want to be content with making a story about a “big-hearted prostitute”, you prefer to explore in longs The complexity of the characters. And it shows how Anora will face the powerful of this world.
Unlike many female characters in cinema, “Anora has her power, she is aware of it and remains in control even when the world falls on her,” insisted Sean Baker in Cannes. Far from being scared by the power of the oligarchs, Anora ridicules this world of men corrupted by money.
Mikey Madison magnifies the character. For many critics, this actress, only 25 years old, discovered in Once upon a time… in Hollywood AND Shout 5should appear at the Oscars. Isabelle Huppert is a fan and finds his performance “captivating,” she told Interview magazine.
“A difficult role”
Mikey Madison immersed herself body and soul in this character, the polar opposite of what she is. He picked up a Brooklyn accent and met real sex workers. “It was very important to create a realistic character,” he explains to BFMTV. “The character would have been very different if I hadn’t made that decision.”
She also had to learn to speak Russian and dance like an experienced stripper. “I was never afraid,” he says. “I wanted her to look like a professional dancer and I only had a few months to prepare. I wanted her to look stunning. I put pressure on myself.”
“I trust Sean as a director,” he adds. “I was willing to do anything for the character, to do really crazy things. I knew he would be there to guide me. It was a difficult role. I wanted to constantly push my limits. As an actress, we shouldn’t have done that.” boundaries”.
Get over yourself
An investment that pushed Sean Baker to also improve himself. “The actors I cast took the movie so seriously and were so great that I had to be precise and do my best. I was making the movie telling myself that I didn’t want to disappoint them.”
His Palme d’Or encourages him to continue down this path. “It’s difficult all over the world, and especially in the United States, to make independent films. Sometimes you can be tempted to take an easier route to work in a studio. But this Palme d’Or encourages me to continue doing the same kind of thing. movie.”
Source: BFM TV
