Audra McDonald, already renowned for her virtuosity in classical and Broadway song, brings her talents to new genres by interpreting works of pop and contemporary composers, including pieces from her album Build a Bridge.
From its visually stunning opening credits, which show women dancing through a forest to musical rhythms that sound almost primal, to its quiet, heartbreaking final frame, Mona Fastvold’s historical rendering of the Shaker religious movement is an experience that will stay with me for a long time.
As a huge fan of Sean Baker’s Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket, I’ve wanted to watch Anora since before it even was released. But life got in the way, my watchlist grew, and honestly, the fact that it was marketed as a romantic comedy put me off. Even with all the critical praise and the five Academy Awards it won last year, I just kept postponing it indefinitely.
A complex, realistic, and loving mother-daughter relationship is at the heart of this story about Black pageants and the fight for a better future.
Its predictability shouldn’t distract from the enjoyment that the pure cinematic imagination behind the camera elicits. It is a movie of crises both moral and mortal, oozing with CGI, and thoroughly enjoyable.
While the director didn't set out to make a feminist film, "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night" reads as a reclamation of female power in a patriarchal society.
