Sean Baker‘s Anora certainly deserves the highest Cannes Screen Jury rating (3.3), but the aggregate critical scores for Ali Abassi‘s The Apprentice (1.7) and Paul Schrader‘s Oh, Canada (1.8) are deranged. Neither of these films has anything to apologize for, and they both pay off. Meanwhile the 12 participating critics are telling us, in effect, that David Cronenberg‘s underwhelming The Shrouds (2.2) and Francis Coppola‘s nutso Megalopolis (2.1) are better? Take the needle out of your arms.

Paolo Sorrentino makes eye-bath films. His lustrous visual swooning began to intensify, I feel, with 2013’s The Great Beauty, and was fully maintained in Youth, Loro and The Hand of God.

But there’s a limit to this kind of spell-weaving, and Sorrentino’s Parthenope, which I saw late last night, is exhibit #1.

Two actresses portray the title role, young Celeste Dalla Porta and the considerably older Stefania Sandrelli. But it’s mainly Della Porta’s show as the film is mostly about a series of guys (Italians of all ages plus Gary Oldman‘s John Cheever) staring longingly and hungrily at her.

I was feeling profoundly bored within 30 minutes, and had decided to bail by the one-hour mark if things didn’t improve. I wound up lasting 90 minutes.

If you’ve ever felt humbled or blown away by a woman’s beauty (we’ve all been there), the way to play it is to not stare at her like she’s a bright red apple and you haven’t eaten in three days. The way to play it is the young Warren Beatty way — one, express more interest in her personality and especially her mind than her looks, and two, behave as if you’re the beautiful one.

In the wake of David Fincher‘s Mank, why did Sorrentino want Oldman to play another soused writer whose literary prowess is quite formidable? After watching Mank I resolved to never again watch Oldman playing a chronic drunk, and now I’ve been through the same damn experience. In my mind there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Oldman’s Cheever and his Herman J. Mankiewicz.

While watching I was thinking of two older films that were about the same kind of thing (i.e., a series of guys worshipping a young irresistible woman and wanting desperately to “lay lady lay” her) — John Schlesinger‘s Darling (’65) and Bernardo Bertolucci‘s Stealing Beauty (’96). Both had underlying currents that were at least moderately interesting, Darling in particular. If there’s any kind of subtextual intrigue in Parthenope, I missed it.

It also struck me that Dalla Porta, who’s around 26, resembles the young Mia Sara (Legend, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).

I bought this yesterday…approved.

This morning I finally saw Sean Baker’s Anora, which everyone seems to believe is destined to win the Palme d’Or. I’m onboard with this prediction, and it’ll be doubly satisfying (for me at least) if Baker’s film prevents Jacques Audiard’s audacious but flawed (as in totally unbelievable) trans musical Emilia Perez from snatching the big prize.

I’ve been searching high and low for a Cannes film that would take the strut out of Perez, and now…glory hallelujah!

On top of which Anora isn’t the least bit wokey — no militant trans or gay stuff, no #MeToo currents, no POC or progressive castings, no 2024 Academy mandate inclusions for their own sake and in fact blissfully free of that whole pain-in-the-ass checklist mindset.

Baker’s loud, coarse and emotionally forceful film, mostly set in southern Brooklyn (an area close to Coney Island and Little Odessa) with two side journeys to Las Vegas, is entirely about straight white trash, and yet a certain amount of soul, grace and dignity are allowed to emerge at the very end.

It’s basically a social-conflict, family-values story (written as well as directed by Baker) about money, sex, arrogance, rage, outsider sturm und drang and a truly bountiful blend of incredible bullshit, screaming hostility and straight talk.

The first act is exasperating (mostly vulgar behavior by profligate 20something party animals) but once a certain family gets involved…look out.

The Anora battle is between the cynical, sex-working, Russian-descended titular character (Mikey Madison, who played the hysterical, screechy-voiced Susan Atkins in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) who prefers the colloquial “Ani” vs. a demimonde of vulgar, grotesquely wealthy Russians, principally Mark Eydelshteyn’s Ivan, the wasteful-idiot son of a Russian oligarch, and one or two none-too-bright Armenians.

And yet it ends on a note of honest emotional admission and revelation even. There’s actually a decent dude in this film, played by Yuriy Borisov…a Russian fellow who isn’t a ferociously propulsive wolverine…imagine.

Madison is a revelation — she deserves to win the Best Actress prize. Out of the blue, her career has been high-octaned and then some.

Neon is distributing Anora — easily the strongest film they’ve ever gotten their mitts on.

Friendo on “okay” Emilia Perez: “It feels like AI Almodóvar. It checks 17 boxes, but it’s not moving — you don’t swoon. It’s actually rather conservative when it comes to the trans thing. Ten years from now, it’ll play like a trans minstrel show.”

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