Blue Valentine, An Education, Silver Linings Playbook, Pretty Woman, The Worst Person in the World, Before Midnight, and Like Crazy. These were the seven movies in the first article I pulled up after an online search of “movies like Anora” returned. As a fan of all seven films, I needed nothing more to decide that Sean Baker’s (Red Rocket, The Florida Project) Anora was one I needed to see. I did not need to see a preview. I did not need to read a synopsis. Instead, I had to find out how quickly I could watch the film. My viewing happened soon after. It was a mixed bag and one that mostly failed. While Silver Linings Playbook and Pretty Woman have good-natured moments of good-naturedness and humor, I wouldn’t label any of these as comedies or unbelievable. While I could see vague similarities, Anora was much more comedy-first, absurd second, and attempts to portray emotional bleakness third. I would not have listed it with the movies the article I read compared it to.
Category Archives: Romance
Sommersby (1993)
My first viewing of Jon Amiel’s (Entrapment, Copycat) Sommersby was when I was 17. I liked the story, was intrigued by the slow unraveling mystery, and ate up the sentimentality created by Richard Gere (Pretty Woman, The Mothman Prophecies) and Jodie Foster (Panic Room, The Silence of the Lambs). Had I reviewed the film in 1993, I likely would have given it an A-. As I watched the movie most recently, some 30 years later, I was impressed by how well it once again grabbed and held my interest. Much of that was trying to spot each clue that connected the start and end, which rewatches allow. However, as simple as the story was, I fell victim to Jack Summerset’s (Gere) six-year return to Laurel (Foster) following the U.S. Civil War.
After Everything (2018)
Jeremy Allen White has a commanding presence. Whether he’s the troubled but brilliant New York chef Carmy Berzatto in FX’s The Bear or the successful but haunted professional wrestler Kerry Von Erich in The Iron Claw, Allen shows how to make his character the one that you can’t take your eyes off of in each scene. Before his recent success and recognition from this show and movie, Allen was known for his recurring role on Showtime’s Shameless. During the show’s decade-long run, White was carving out a name for himself on the big screen during that time with critically acclaimed but mostly unseen Afterschool, We Gotta Get Out of This Place Bobby, and co-directors Hannah Marks (Don’t Make Me Go, Turtles All the Way Down) and Joey Power’s romantic dramedy After Everything.
Once (2007)
I’ve watched John Carney’s (Begin Again, Sing Street) Once in its entirety three times. I saw it in 2007 during its theatrical run. I saw it another time between that and my 2024 rewatch. I have felt myself connecting with it less with each subsequent viewing, yet appreciating it more. What is ironic is that when I first saw the film, it felt like an original masterpiece, and that is something I don’t feel anymore. Perhaps that was because I needed to see more movies following the fairly generic formula. Or maybe it was because I’ve seen too many films that have followed that blueprint, resulting in Once feeling less original than I initially found. As I write this review, I try to balance that original perception against how I react to the film 14 years later.
You Hurt My Feelings (2023)
Nicole Holofcener’s (Friends With Money, Love, and Amazing) You Hurt My Feelings is a less affecting version of her 2013 critically acclaimed and well-received Enough Said. Each movie’s watch went down like a tasty new beverage, but then quickly forgotten as soon as we tried something new. In addition to being a better movie, Enough Said was the final movie of the late James Gandolfini and one that allowed him to shed the exterior of Tony Soprano in favor of a softer, more vulnerable character. Each movie starred Julia Louis-Dreyfus (National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Hannah and Her Sisters) in, perhaps, her two best non-television roles.