One, the middle section of Anora never, ever drags…not once, not even briefly. It doesn’t really take off, in fact, until roughly the 50- or 55-minute mark. The first act is all set-up. It pays off in Act Two — farcically, comically — and then it goes to Vegas (“Your son hates you so much that he married me, and by the way he’s a fucking pussy”) and returns to Brooklyn, and then reaches inside at the very end and transcends itself.

Two, the fact that “it doesn’t really seem to have anything larger to say about the world today,” as Scott Feinberg has put it, is precisely, profoundly and deliciously why it’s such a standout. It’s not preaching or messaging or offering any “this is how life sometimes is”, food-for-thought material. It’s just Brighton Beach, man. It’s not La Strada, although it does deliver a certain catharsis if you let it in. Anora is specific rather than general or universal. Either you get that or you don’t.