This week, I’m going to do what I usually do and review the biggest as-yet-unreviewed movie at the weekend box office with “Last Breath.” However, I’m also going to take a detour and review the film that just won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in “Anora.” My rationale is that the Oscar win may lead to renewed interest, and thus a spike in ticket sales, on a national level. Also, I’ve wanted an excuse to talk about this movie for months. But first, the “hot” new release…
“Last Breath”
This movie tells the real-life story of a mission to rescue a deep-sea pipeline worker stranded at the bottom of the ocean. Finn Cole plays the terrified diver, Simu Liu is his partner and the only diver capable of such a dangerous rescue, Woody Harrelson operates the underwater vessel that Cole and Liu use as a base, and Cliff Curtis is the captain of the ship in charge of the vessel. Everyone has to be very smart, capable, and careful, and they have to do it all in the middle of a huge storm. It doesn’t look good for our marooned main character, who has only a ten-minute supply of oxygen.
“Last Breath” has its heart in the right place, trying to make a memorable cinematic experience out of real heroism. It does what it can to wring every last drop of suspense out of an operation that, mathematically, must have been over relatively quickly (quickly for a feature-length movie, that is, not to be without oxygen). But the banter, emotional beats, and character types can be found in any number of similar films. The only thing this movie really has to boast about is its ability to recreate danger and make its audience very uncomfortable. How eager are you to sit through a movie that can’t sell itself on anything other than making you uncomfortable?
Grade: C
“Last Breath” is rated PG-13 for brief strong language. Its running time is 93 minutes.
“Anora”
The newly-crowned Best Picture Oscar winner stars Mikey Madison (herself the winner of the Best Actress Oscar) as the title character, a sex worker who doesn’t allow herself to have any delusions about her life. That is, until she meets wealthy young Russian Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), who falls in love with her and promises her a life of luxury. For possibly the first time in her life, Ani allows herself to be hopeful about the future, and her dreams seem to come true when she and Vanya get married. But one day, three “business associates” (Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, and Oscar nominee Yura Borisov) of Vanya’s oligarch father show up at Vanya’s house, tasked with getting the marriage annulled. Anora’s chance at a better life is about to fall to pieces, and Vanya doesn’t help things by simply disappearing, which sends everyone on a crazed search together, but with conflicting goals.
The cast plays well off each other, and the desperate search scenes play deliciously into my anxieties in a way that no movie has triggered since 2019’s “Uncut Gems.” But the heart of the movie is in the Madison performance as a character who refuses to admit how pathetic she truly is, including and especially to herself. In that way, “Anora” is the most heartbreaking film of 2024. It’s also the funniest film of 2024, with all the shenanigans between Anora and the Russian goons, especially Borisov. Oscar-winning director Sean Baker made sure all tones were covered in his Oscar-winning script, then he went and won another Oscar for editing. This movie is so tragic, uproarious, infuriating, and beautiful that I was literally stumbling around in a daze after I left the theater. The one thing that was clear was that I had just seen the best movie not just of 2024, but the last five years. And if you have room in your heart for a very raunchy indie movie, I suggest you see it too.
Grade: A for Anora!
“Anora” is rated R for strong sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, pervasive language, and drug use. Its running time is 139 minutes.
Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.
Last Update: Mar 03, 2025 10:24 am CST
