From the sidelines

Two surprise releases — Anora and Marathi film Sthal — have met with mainstream success. It's time to head back to theatres

- Deepanjana Pal

The year is 2025 and Anora, an independent film about a sex worker, made on a budget of $6 million, has won the Academy Award for best picture. (It won a total of five Oscars, including Best Director and Best Actress.) Director Sean Baker begins his tale with a lap dance in a strip club, and ends with a weeping sex worker in a rickety car. It's not exactly a feel-good film. Yet, for all its heartbreak, Anora is hilarious in parts, and tender in its gaze, as it follows an oddball group of people straitjacketed by circumstance.

It's interesting to watch Anora as US President Donald Trump attempts to add a rom-com epilogue to America's Cold War tale. His heart-eyed affinity for Putin is an intriguing backdrop for the story of an American dazzled by the wealth of a Russian oligarch, who briefly latches on to the oligarch's son, hoping he can be her Prince Charming.