Anora The Explorer

It is a movie and it is good.

Welllll shiiiiiit. As I wrote once before, it was the Sean Baker film The Florida Project being almost completely shut out from the Oscars that got me to finally stop caring about those awards. But now there’s another Sean Baker film out and it’s getting Oscar buzz. If it gets nominated,

I don’t think Baker’s latest, Anora, is necessarily as moving as TFP, but I don’t know for sure because I haven’t watched TFP since it was in theaters — it’s not exactly heart-warming feel-good stuff.

But I did like Anora. A lot.

Like most of Baker’s oeuvre, it’s about a resourceful sex worker, but instead of playing out against the bleaching sun of LA (Tangerine) or Florida, it takes place in New York, mostly Brighton Beach/Coney Island and a downtown strip club, over the holidays, when the city gets a little quieter and emptier and slower thanks to the snow. There’s definitely an essay to be written comparing it to Eyes Wide Shut. (The Hustlers vibes are also potent — another movie I love)

But that’s not the essay I wrote. I wrote about hair :) And I would really like you to read it.

Link link here’s the link.

This will also be my final word on how I spent election week, in case for some reason you thought this newsletter was about that; it’s very much not.

Go see Anora so we can debate the ending.

Kiss kiss,

Lizzie