Anora - The Criterion Collection 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Best Picture. Best Director. Best Screenplay. Best Actress. Best Editing. Five Oscar wins out of six nominations is a hell of a feat. Sean Beaker took home four of those awards (obviously not nominated for Best Actress) for his latest feature, Anora. With that kind of award season haul thrusting a film into that stratosphere of accolade attention, that’s a lot of pressure to live up to. Nearly an Oscar Grand Slammer, Anora thankfully lives up to the reputation as a Best Picture-worthy contender with a variety of kinetic performances and a razor-sharp script with slick direction. But it's a flick that's not for everyone.

We meet Anora or “Ani” doing what she does best - taking care of men willing to pay for a great time as an employee of a high-scale lap dance club in Brooklyn. Because she knows Russian, she’s asked by her boss to entertain the big-spending son-of-an-oligarch, Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn). At first, their encounters are just business, trading “entertainment” for cash. But Ani soon lets her guard down when Ivan proposes they elope, promising cash and a lavish lifestyle so he doesn’t have to return to Russia and work for his father. When Ivan’s Armenian godfather Toros (Karren Karagulian) and two of his goons, Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov), arrive to force the two lovers into annulment, Ivan takes off. As Ani edures having to search all over New York for her husband with these three strangers, the reality of her dream life is exposed.

So I was admittedly late to the game for Anora. I saw the first previews, and Sean Baker’s involvement certainly had my attention, but life got in the way of a film where the local theaters only offered late-night viewings. It wasn’t until after the awards cycle that I was finally able to make the trek out to the big screen with the weight of great expectations on my shoulders. Would it live up to the hype? Or would it disappoint? 

The short answer is yes. In my book, Anora lives up to the hype and then some. The longer answer is that it took me a bit to fall into the film, and then it took a second viewing at home on disc for me to really get in line that this truly was an exciting Best Picture-worthy feature. Even after that second viewing, it took me a couple of days to get my head into a space where I felt I could adequately review the film.

What took me a bit to get into this film was the initial fantasy of Ani’s infatuation with Ivan. I think part of it was the obvious similarity to Pretty Woman, part of it was the pace, but it was also taking me time to find something to hang my hat on with these characters. When we see them having fun and living it up, we do not see who these characters truly are in the real world as humans. It’s when the fantasy crashes down that we see the facade of “Ani” dissolve away as the strong survivor Anora emerges. And Ivan is, well, just Ivan. 

Mikey Madison makes the film. While Sean Baker is again proving his deft touch as a damned talented writer/director, this is Madison’s film. She’s the heart and soul. I think it’s her transition from happy-go-lucky and somewhat frivolous sex worker who found a winning life lotto ticket into shrewed survivor that really hooked me into the story. It’s when she has to endure the darkly-comedic circumstances of finding her runaway husband with three goofball goons that we get to see her as a person, and the story comes to life. 

But is it worthy of all the awards and accolades? I’d say absolutely, but with the caveat that I still have other films I enjoyed more that were nominated and didn’t take anything home. While this is certainly a worthy Best Picture contender, Conclave is still my choice favorite feature of the year. While Mikey Madison was incredible in this film, proving she’s a talent to contend with for future projects, I’d have given Best Actress to Demi Moore for The Substance. But that’s just me; I’m not a voting member of the Academy, so my opinion doesn’t count for much. Hell, in the packed catalog of internet critics, my opinion probably counts for even less. To that end, I can’t say this is a film everyone is going to agree on. Its frank depictions of sex work are certainly going to alienate a lot of folks out there, and then a number won’t see the dark comedy the film offers, either. As I said, it took me two rounds to get into the story and fully appreciate what Baker delivered. But now that I’m comfortable with where my head sits on this one, Anora is one hell of a piece of work worth more than a few viewings.

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Thanks to The Criterion Collection, Anora gets to marry into 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray without a plethora of releases beforehand. A three-disc release, we get the film in 4K pressed on a BD100 disc, the film in 1080p on a Region A BD50 disc, and another Region A BD50 reserved for bonus features. The discs are housed in a multi-disc digipac case with a paper slipcase. Each disc loads to an animated main menu with Criterion’s standard accordion-style menu structure. Also included is a 24-page booklet with essays and transfer information designed to look like an old-school film magazine, right down to being printed on what feels like thin, low-quality paper stock.

Shot on 35mm and presented in 2.39:1 2160p with an HDR10 grading, Anora delivers an often striking visual experience. From the opening sequence in the club to Anora’s cramped apartment to the glitz of Las Vegas, the film’s color pallet likes to play with fantasy and reality. In the club, the colors are bolder, deep blues and deep reds with pitch blacks and shadows. In the real world, colors are colder, a little more lifeless, and anytime a scene shifts under fluorescents, it can look greened and lifeless. Black levels can shift along these parallels as well. Sometimes, those deep dark spaces and shadows lend to a richly dimensionalised image, othertimes in can look quite flat. The last act is a great highlight example of deep dimensional visual reality, situating nicely with what’s happening in the film at that moment. Flipping between the 4K and included 1080p discs, the differences between presentations are subtle, but the extra bitrate space of the 4K disc lets those finer details stand out with a more healthy grain structure. Not that it’s noisy in 1080p, but it’s more refined and natural-looking with the added resolution. The big difference maker is the HDR10 grade. It’s not overly aggressive, but it gives that extra nuance to the colors, black levels, and contrast as the story progresses.

On the audio front, we have a rich DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio mix to enjoy. When life’s a party at the strip club or when Ivan has the massive house party, the mix is aggressively immersive with wall-to-wall audio effects from screaming people to bass-thumping music. When it needs to be calmer and more nuanced, the subtleties of the mix come through beautifully. As Anora and the goons try to find Ivan on the vacant Coney Island boardwalk, the whipping winter winds and the thumping footfalls on the wooden planks fill that soundscape as the characters argue amongst themselves. Adding to that subtlety, each location they go to trying to find Ivan has a unique staging to it. Throughout, the dialog is clean and clear without issue. Levels are spot on and imaging is dynamic enough to make sure even if the moment is quiet and contemplative, those side and surround channels have something to offer.

For a modern release where we so rarely even get half an hour of bonus features for an average new release, Criterion pulls out the stops for their release of Anora. At the top of the pack, we have two very good audio commentaries with Sean Baker discussing the film with some of his crew and Sean Baker again discussing the film with various cast members. Both are excellent informative listens. The cast commentary is a little rougher; some of the cast members were remoted in or had their thoughts edited into the track so it’s not a 100% back-and-forth talk, but lots of great info all the same. Then, there’s a terrific making-of documentary running over an hour for an almost day-by-day look at the filming. Then you get press conferences, a look at a special screening, deleted scenes, and audition footage. Lots of material to keep you busy after the show’s over. 

4K UHD Disc

• Audio Commentary featuring Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, and Drew Daniels. 
• Audio Commentary featuring Sean Baker with Mikey Madison, Ura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Kragulian, and Vache Tovmasyan.

Blu-ray Disc One

• Audio Commentary featuring Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, and Drew Daniels. 
• Audio Commentary featuring Sean Baker with Mikey Madison, Ura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Kragulian, and Vache Tovmasyan.

Blu-ray Disc Two

• Sean Baker Interview (HD 9:36)
• Sean Baker and Mikey Madison (HD 12:43)
• Anora: Stripped Down (HD 1:07:31)
• Cannes Press Conference (HD 41:47)
• Mike Madison and Lindsey Normington (HD 35:54)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 7:27)
• Audition Footage: (HD 14:54 Total)
• Darya Ekamasova
• Vlad Mamai
• Luna Sofia Miranda
• Lindsey Normington
• Vincent Radwinsky
• Vache Tovmasyan
• Iuvy Wolk
• Trailers

As with any film that picks up numerous accolades and awards, including the big heavy hitters like Best Director and Best Picture, Sean Baker’s Anora is likely going to be a divisive topic of conversation. And I totally get that. It's not an "everyone" four-quadrent crowdpleaser. I saw the film after all of the awards hype, and my first viewing of it took me a good 30-40 minutes to get on board with the film. Then it took me this home video viewing to fully appreciate what it did. But I’m like that, though. I’ll give a movie multiple views to confirm my thoughts, especially if it’s something like Anora where there’s a lot of hype and I didn't fully connect with it the first outing. Even if I loved it outright, I would still give the film another look in case those thoughts don’t hold twice through. For Anora it’s a film I liked the more I saw it and the more I had time to think about it. Certainly not for everyone, but it’s a film well worth seeing and discussing. On 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, the Criterion Collection delivered a terrific set with an excellent HDR10 transfer, fantastic audio, and hours of excellent informative bonus features. I’ve got to call this one Highly Recommended