Sean Baker
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Pretty Woman (1990)
Directed by Garry Marshall
influenced Anora (2024), Tangerine (2015)
Themes Plot
If Pretty Woman is a romantic adventure of people celebrating their authentic passion for each other, Anora is that times 100.
Anora is no fairytale or Pretty Woman-esque romantic comedy…
Baker’s subversively romantic, free-wheeling sex farce makes “Pretty Woman” look like a Disney movie.
Its visual language and layered bedlam evoke a re-envisioning of Pretty Woman…
…un inicio que recuerda a «Mujer Bonita» (1990) en clave de comedia romántica…
…definitively ending any false notions that Anora would follow the conventions of rom-coms à la Pretty Woman (1990).
Anora, Sean Baker’s latest film following 2021's Cannes-premiering Red Rocket, is a raucous blast - a kinetic New York City screwball comedy that shares the chaotic energy of the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems and disguises a darker heart.
The film is equal parts rom-com, screwball comedy and Uncut Gems…
It packs 130 minutes to the brim with some of the most stress-inducing comedic moments that I’ve seen since, probably, “Uncut Gems.”
Like the mostly unsung Uncut Gems, it’s a New York movie with an unfashionably pungent sense of place, and it’s rowdy, raunchy, comic and tragic.
It’s as if you shot up the hapless enforcers of a Coen Brothers comedy with the adrenaline of Uncut Gems.
If Good Time and Uncut Gems were heart-clutching, cinematic panic attacks, Anora is in fine company, and a real banger.
She’s thinking, in particular, of Cinderella. Yes, she affirms: fuckin’ Cinderella.
Like Cinderella, there is also a heroine at the center of Anora whose dreams, hopes, and heartbreak are rendered so vibrantly that the film manages to reach out and wrap you in its embrace.
Much like the plot of Cinderella, which Ani mentions as her favourite Disney princess when dreaming of her future honeymoon…
The fairy tale begins to crumble, just like Cinderella’s carriage falling apart as it turns back into a pumpkin when Vanya’s parents get wind of the marriage.
…reverso realista de La cenicienta contemporánea…
Ani confesses a love of Disney princesses and Cinderella in particular…
After Hours (1985)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
influenced Anora (2024), Tangerine (2015)
Themes Plot
…a stressful but humorous farce by way of Uncut Gems crossed with Martin Scorsese’s After Hours…
…part escalating nightmare comedy reminiscent of ’80s gems like “After Hours” and “Married to the Mob.”
Scorsese’s After Hours immediately comes to mind, as Baker treats us to short vignettes highlighting the boroughs of New York and all of their seedy culture. It’s the best kind of road movie, and during the course of the evening, Igor emerges from his quiet soldier persona and turns into something of a protector of Anora, once he realizes she really did love Ivan and wanted to stay married to him. She goes through the entire evening thinking Ivan feels the same way and will stand up to his parents once they arrive, but we suspect he’s a spineless jellyfish from the minute he bolts.
…an extended set piece involving a city-wide hunt for Ani’s husband recalls the frenetic energy of “After Hours,”…
There’s a bit of Scorsese’s After Hours here, at least in some of its surrealism, though Baker’s doing more celebrating than he is ironizing and decrying — but not in a fashion-photographer, party-planning-anthropologist sort of way.
Little Fugitive (1953)
Directed by Morris Engel
influenced The Florida Project (2017)
Visuals Themes Plot
The Florida Project draws on the legacy of films such as Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1978), which offers a child’s-eye view of Watts, and Little Fugitive (Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, 1953), which does the same for Coney Island.
But what it really reminded me of was “Little Fugitive,” the great 1953 independent movie, about a boy let loose in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, that influenced the French New Wave, or François Truffaut’s “Small Change,” in which childhood is comprehended, without sticky sentimentality, as an enraptured time of life.
The Florida Project’s more whimsical childhood setting is reminiscent of the “Little Rascals” of Our Gang , or the seminal work of early-’50s naturalism Little Fugitive , which followed a working-class runaway navigating the chaos of Coney Island.
Working within a formula established by the 1953 masterpiece “Little Fugitive,” in which a young child roams Coney Island on his own, Baker uses his measured neorealist style to turns the grimy setting into a sun-soaked wonderland in which the children relate to their surroundings as an ongoing game.
The Little Rascals (1994)
Directed by Penelope Spheeris
influenced The Florida Project (2017)
Visuals Themes
But Baker, blending The Little Rascals with his own brand of indie neo-realism, cuts a direct path to the heart.
Baker pays tribute in the end credits to “The Little Rascals” shorts from the 1920s and ’30s, and I suppose one could mistake “The Florida Project” for a transcendent episode from that series.
Baker pulls it off by drawing on an unlikely inspiration: The Little Rascals.
Of course, Sean Baker ("Tangerine") was crediting the creators of the classic "Our Gang" comedies (better known to most of us as "The Little Rascals") and with good reason.
Sean Baker had hoped to make The Florida Project as the modern rejoinder to Hal Roach’s The Little Rascals, a series of early 20th century short films depicting the adventures of a dastardly group of ragtag young children.
“The Florida Project” has many antecedents: Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows,” for one, and literary exposes of poverty like Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” but also classics of comic kid anarchy like “The Little Rascals” series, Jean Vigo’s “Zero for Conduct,” and Louis Malle’s “Zazie dans la Metro.”
But what it really reminded me of was “Little Fugitive,” the great 1953 independent movie, about a boy let loose in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, that influenced the French New Wave, or François Truffaut’s “Small Change,” in which childhood is comprehended, without sticky sentimentality, as an enraptured time of life.
There’s a dash of Truffaut’s “400 Blows” and “Small Change” in the movie’s recipe, along with the “Our Gang” vibe.
There will likely be comparisons made between this film and the work of the Safdie Brothers, with much of this middle feeling similar to Good Time, though it is in the downshift where Baker finds something distinct from that.
…the whirlwind speed and cacophonous energy of a Safdie brothers movie (Good Times, Uncut Gems)…
If Good Time and Uncut Gems were heart-clutching, cinematic panic attacks, Anora is in fine company, and a real banger.
This extended middle section, in which the hapless quartet attempts to track down Ivan, has already been compared to Safdie brothers’ films Good Time or Uncut Gems…
Of the creators of “Heaven Knows What” and “Daddy Longlegs,” fellow filmmaker Sean Baker (“Tangerine”) puts it nicely, saying that “Good Time” “falls perfectly in the Safdie canon.
It would be easy to criticize Honey Boy for following in the same footsteps as other tragic childhood stories like The Florida Project or Mommie Dearest , or other festival darlings like I, Tonya and Precious .
Noah Jupe ( Wonder, A Quiet Place, the upcoming Ford v Ferrari ) is quite a find as he manages to deal with some rather mature situations that faced LaBeouf as a kid living with his irresponsible, violence-prone father in a sleazy motel that at times recalls moments from The Florida Project .
As personal a project as Honey Boy may be — and as powerfully felt as it often is — the movie sometimes has the whiff of an artful rehashing of themes and characters familiar from various recent problematic-parent films like We the Animals , The Florida Project and I, Tonya (and, before those, Precious , Affliction , The Great Santini , camp classic Mommie Dearest and so many others).
But then there’s moments away from James, where young Otis gets to be a boy discovering the wonders of even this squalid world of these busted down apartments (think The Florida Project).
But as directed by Alma Har’el, whose music video background is easy to detect, “Honey Boy” is visually lyrical, moving to its own pace and melody and similar to 2017’s “The Florida Project” in how it grants beauty to the dingy, impoverished outskirts of glamorous landmarks.
Otis and James live in a The Florida Project-esque motel in rather unseemly conditions.
Instead, there's a kinship with Hollywood's screwball comedies of the 1930s, where an unlikely romance blossoms in the flurries of a rough and tumble escapade, like the beautiful zaniness of Bringing Up Baby (1938) or classic divorce scenario in The Awful Truth (1937), except equipped with the foul-mouthed glory and sexual fervor inherent to reality.
A better parallel, particularly after the chase begins, is with the classic screwball comedy of the 1930s and 1940s: The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday.
In some ways, The Florida Project reminded me of Fish Tank .
Influences here range from Ken Loach’s 1969 gem Kes, Carroll Ballard’s 1979 classic The Black Stallion, François Truffaut’s timeless 1959 stunner The 400 Blows, John Boorman’s graceful 1987 drama Hope and Glory and Andrea Arnold’s 2009 marvel Fish Tank.
A mix of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and “Fish Tank,” Baker (who wrote the film with Chris Bergoch) brilliantly presents both sides of Moonee’s world, the real and the imaginative, held together by a whisper-thin membrane of childhood wonder.
While the performances of Prince and Vinaite are raw (the latter reminded me of Katie Jarvis from Fish Tank in its ferocity), it's Dafoe who is the balancing influence.
Killer of Sheep (1978)
Directed by Charles Burnett
influenced The Florida Project (2017)
Visuals Themes
The Florida Project draws on the legacy of films such as Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1978), which offers a child’s-eye view of Watts, and Little Fugitive (Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, 1953), which does the same for Coney Island.
Baker also shifts to the longer, tougher days of the motel’s grownup occupants—a choice that spiritually aligns The Florida Project with a DIY classic of multigenerational focus, Charles Burnett’s Killer Of Sheep .
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Directed by Benh Zeitlin
influenced The Florida Project (2017)
Characters Visuals Themes
As Moonee, Prince has the sort of coming-out party that greeted Quvenzhane Wallis in “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and Jacob Tremblay in “Room.”
The focus here is still on marginalized people, but Baker and Bergoch have graduated to 35mm film, which perfectly suits the empty-candy-wrapper aesthetics of the place, and also recalls the dreamlike weirdness of Beasts of the Southern Wild—minus soundtrack music, except for one of the most riveting finishes you’ll encounter this or any other year.
There are exceptions to the rule, such as Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, Lee Daniels’s Precious, Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone, and Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Like Quvenzhane Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild she has much to teach us about the disappointments of poverty and the character qualities necessary for survival.
While the impulse is admirable, it results in a film that veers dangerously close to the kind of aestheticized poverty porn that bedeviled such similar enterprises as “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “American Honey.”
A better parallel, particularly after the chase begins, is with the classic screwball comedy of the 1930s and 1940s: The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday.
Instead, there's a kinship with Hollywood's screwball comedies of the 1930s, where an unlikely romance blossoms in the flurries of a rough and tumble escapade, like the beautiful zaniness of Bringing Up Baby (1938) or classic divorce scenario in The Awful Truth (1937), except equipped with the foul-mouthed glory and sexual fervor inherent to reality.
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
influenced The Florida Project (2017)
Themes Visuals
Nothing says "unforced realism" more than a narratively shapeless slice-of-life snapshot of impoverished kids wandering around in beatific innocence of their own suffering; all the way back to 1946's Shoeshine and 1948's Bicycle Thieves , child non-actors floating in front of the camera, guileless in their moral comfort, have been a mainstay of the form.
This kind of social realist, vérité-style filmmaking has been part of cinema almost from its beginning, reaching peaks in Italian neorealism (1948’s Bicycle Thieves ) and the French New Wave (1959’s The 400 Blows ).
Imagine a Sunshine State riff on “Los Olvidados” or “Bicycle Thieves,” slathered in sherbet hues and sprinkled with Pop Rocks, and you’ll get some sense of the strange, sun-scorched beauty of Baker’s accomplishment.
While the production comes from the Duplass brothers' stable, there's a touch of Harmony Korine here, a dash of John Waters and an echo of the resourcefulness of Jonathan Caouette, who made his dizzying 2003 memoir, Tarnation, with a little over $200, using iMovie software.
Nothing says "unforced realism" more than a narratively shapeless slice-of-life snapshot of impoverished kids wandering around in beatific innocence of their own suffering; all the way back to 1946's Shoeshine and 1948's Bicycle Thieves , child non-actors floating in front of the camera, guileless in their moral comfort, have been a mainstay of the form.
The 400 Blows (1959)
Directed by François Truffaut
influenced The Florida Project (2017)
Themes Visuals
Influences here range from Ken Loach’s 1969 gem Kes, Carroll Ballard’s 1979 classic The Black Stallion, François Truffaut’s timeless 1959 stunner The 400 Blows, John Boorman’s graceful 1987 drama Hope and Glory and Andrea Arnold’s 2009 marvel Fish Tank.
Have they escaped the cellular confines of “The 400 Blows” or “Salaam Bombay”?
This kind of social realist, vérité-style filmmaking has been part of cinema almost from its beginning, reaching peaks in Italian neorealism (1948’s Bicycle Thieves ) and the French New Wave (1959’s The 400 Blows ).
Her wonderful performance helps The Florida Project – despite the lack of much narrative structure – sit proudly beside such great studies of childhood as The 400 Blows, Fanny and Alexander and Boyhood .
“The Florida Project” has many antecedents: Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows,” for one, and literary exposes of poverty like Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” but also classics of comic kid anarchy like “The Little Rascals” series, Jean Vigo’s “Zero for Conduct,” and Louis Malle’s “Zazie dans la Metro.”
“The Florida Project” joins classics such as Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” in that rarefied space.
Much like the underrated recent film Hustlers, Anora takes us into the reality of stripping and sex work as a job that most other movies often use as background noise.
…he doesn’t have to show Madison pole dancing à la Jennifer Lopez in “Hustlers”…
The following act treads a similar tone to Lorene Scafaria’s slick yet tender Hustlers; like Constance Wu’s newbie Destiny, Ani works the room — albeit at a more confident tempo — flashing a broader, fixed smile, pouncing at the sign of opportunity, and fielding distasteful comments from her clients (“Does your family know that you do this?”).
It calls to mind the raggedy energy of the 1980s New York independent film explosion, most notably Spike Lee’s debut “She’s Gotta Have It” in the way it showcases an underrepresented minority in a no-big-deal fashion, with a good amount of raunchy humor instead of any special pleading or self-importance on the filmmaker’s behalf.
If it were possible to time-warp "Tangerine" back a few decades, it could be part of that wave of indies that redefined American cinema in the eighties and nineties, with features like " Go Fish ," "The Living End," "Clerks," "The Brother from Another Planet" and "She's Gotta Have It"— works that, acting- and storytelling-wise, were rough around the edges, but compensated by depicting worlds rarely seen onscreen, with warmth and confidence.