Once upon a time, there was a supply company in Washington called the Atlantic Plumbing Supply Company. It was housed in an old building on V Street NW. The business and the building are now gone, and on the site is a modern apartment building with a 6 screen movie theater called Landmark Atlantic Plumbing Theater.

We hadn’t been to this theater since before the pandemic, but went this afternoon to see the Academy Award winning Best Picture of the Year, Anora.

Is Anora worth four Oscars and the Cannes Palme d’Or?

I think the short answer is “No way”.

The plot line: Ani (Anora) works as a dancer/stripper/escort/prostitute at a club in Manhattan called Headquarters, which seems, at all hours, to be filled with dozens of attractive young girls and even more not as attractive male customers.

Ani, who speaks a little Russian “because her grandmother never learned English”, is taken to meet Vanya, a young Russian customer. They have “a good time” and after a few more, Vanya invites Ani to his house for a private session. Vanya, by the way, is 21 going on 12, and Ani is 23. She knew from the club that he was a big spender, but was taken aback when she saw his much too large and much too fancy house in a gated lot overlooking water in Brighton Beach. It turns out that Vanya’s father is a major Russian oligarch.

After more “fun”, all of which you witness on the screen, and is so continual that it becomes as boring as possible, Vanya hires Ani to be his “girlfriend” for a week (he will pay her $15,000 in cash up front) and he takes Ani and four of his friends to Las Vegas. They stay in the penthouse suite (at least as large and fancy as his house) at a casino hotel, and they have so much more fun that they decide to get married at a Las Vegas chapel. And so they do.

Shortly after getting back to Brighton Beach, rumors of the marriage gets back to Russia, and from Vanya’s rich Russian parents to three thugs (one of whom seems to be an Armenian priest?) who are supposed to keep an eye on Vanya.

Knowing their jobs and maybe their lives are at stake, they break into the house. After trying to keep them at bay, Vanya runs away, leaving Ani with the thugs. The film is no longer a sex film, and is now a film based on an assault and break-in, and no longer tries to be tawdry, but becomes more of an off-beat, comic invasion, as the thugs turn out to hardly be a match for Ani, who really doesn’t know what is going on, and wrongly assumes that Vanya has gone for help.

The third part of the film shows the thugs and Ani as a foursome chasing around New York in an Escalade looking for Vanya. They find him at Ani’s old club, naturally, Drunk (with a capital D), with Ani’s rival who had told her that the marriage would never last.

The fourth part of the film shows Vanya’s parents arriving from Russia on their private jet to have the marriage annulled and their son brought back to Russia. After much travail, they succeed and return to Vegas, the only place the annulment can be accomplished. It turns out that Vanya is in favor of the annulment and never took the marriage seriously (or so he convincingly says). A sadder, but maybe wiser, Anora flies back to New York with Igor, a somewhat sympathetic thug who seems like he just got into the wrong business, and who knows? This just might be the start of something big.

I could tell you more about why I didn’t thing the film very good, but it probably isn’t necessary. Let me just leave you with one question. At a time when there actually seems to be fewer direct sex scenes, and less nudity, in major films, why have Mikey Madison (Anora) and Emma Stone (Poor Things) won the best actress awards the past two years? Was it based on their acting or their bravery? And what advice does it give young actresses as they look to the future?

I am not making a moral judgment.  Just asking a question.