User reviews

I found it quite absorbing. I haven't seen it since 1988 or so. I remember Paulina Porizkova was a pretty famous model back then, pre-supermodel days. I was deeply struck by the relationship between the two woman. Youth and middle-age. The incredible losses of not only youth, but of possibility and love are touched on in a way very rarely seen in movies. Especially from a woman's point of view. The mentoring of the younger woman and then the incredible sense of loss when she is whisked away by public reaction to her beauty and then actually takes on the painful past of her mentor, in a way steals it is incredibly moving. You end up feeling for Kirkland's character because she seems to have greater depth than the younger woman, but at the same time is that just the result of age and circumstance? And the poignant relationship to her lost image and the contacts and opportunity that her youthful beauty once promised her. Now she is alone and forgotten in a foreign land. It is pretty incredible.

Once a film star in Czechoslovakia, a middle-aged Anna has to settle for the humiliation of an off-Broadway understudy role only to watch her inexperienced and recently emigrated young protege (Porizkova) find sudden success in Hollywood. There is probably only one reason to watch "Anna", a clumsy slice-of-miserable-life story, and that is Kirkland's wonderful portrayal of her courageously vulnerable character. Likely to have only narrow appeal, "Anna" is a Czech flavored indie worth a look and a must see for Kirkland fans. C+

Sally Kirkland is standout in this character driven drama. This film is what great films are all about, they tell great stories about people and get you thinking.

The script is fantastic and Kirkland is heart breaking. The film should be far better remembered than it is and film schools should use it in class.

Kirkland should have won the Oscar and had the film had better distribution and some more money behind it, she would have, but CHER had a huge campaign behind her for Moonstruck.

Kirkland is under rated and her two best roles since ANNA have failed to get distribution:

What's up Scarlet and Norma Jean, Jack, and Me.

A must see for film fans and those who love actors...

As an actor who works in film and television, I think Kirkland's performance in "Anna" is one of the greatest ever given by an American actress on screen. Every actor should see it, as well as Kim Stanley's in "The Goddess" and Geraldine Page's in "The Trip to Bountiful".

I also think this film is important in its message to Hollywood - stop putting looks above talent!

This film is a fascinating story, all too true for actresses in the US, especially today. Anna, an enormously talented middle-aged woman, is overlooked, while exceptional opportunities come along for a pretty young girl with little to offer but looks and a perky personality, who just happens to use Anna to get to the top.

The story is supposed to be based on a real person and her experience trying to find work in New York after having been a star in Europe. Kirkland brings this character to life with amazing depth and courage. Although she lost the Oscar that year to the well - deserving Cher for "Moonstruck", I think if more people had seen this film, Kirkland would have walked away with the little gold man that night. I am still inspired by what the film has to say about women in this business who lose opportunities because of ageism. What is it with American producers? I love Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave, but if they were American women, they would never find work! The Hollywood film industry should take a lesson from their European counterparts and use the talented older ladies we have right here!!! Every time Dench or Redgrave make a film, they are nominated or win for it. There are thousands of equally gifted ladies right under our noses in Hollywood who never get a shot at greatness. Sadly, Sally Kirkland just had the one...

ANNA is a very uneven film BUT Sally Kirkland's performance is not. Shame that more people didnt see if they did she might have gotten an Academy Award. Fortunately she was nominated.

what makes this film worth watching, other than the unrecognized talent of sally kirkland, is the authentic feel of lower new york and the off broadway scene. the ending is not what i expected and i appreciate the fact that someone knows how to write an ending that makes you think about what you just saw and feel somehting for the characters that you have to think about before you decide exactly what you felt. i saw this film several years after its release and i think if i could vote the oscars now i would vote it in lead actress, screenplay and cinemotagraphy. an excellent film proving creativity not money is what makes something worth watching on screen. 3 and 1/2 stars. timelessly moving

This film is all about Kirkland's performance, which is still one of the best performances I've ever seen on film. She was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Geraldine Page for The Trip to Bountiful in one of those sympathy votes going to the lesser performance things (Page had been nominated without winning something like eight times prior, so a lot of people in the Academy probably thought it was time to give her something). Porizkova does pretty well for her debut performance, but then again she was pretty much playing herself as an eastern European beauty who is discovered and becomes a model.

But I'm writing this review solely to give Kirkland the praise she deserves for her terrific performance.

"Anna" is the movie with perhaps the greatest disparity between my opinion and everyone else's, so seems appropriate for my first comment on IMDb.

Anna (Sally Kirkland) was a legendary actress in Czechoslovakia, and in New York suffers a career in shabby productions with avant garde or artistic pretensions. Krystyna (Paulina Porizkova), an immigrant from Czechoslovakia with acting aspirations, spends her first days on the streets of New York searching for Anna, fainting from hunger virtually on her doorstep. Anna takes her in, and they become intimate friends.

Porizkova's Krystyna is as compellingly ambitious and wily as any of Werner Herzog's roles -- and this in an area calling for a subtler social sense. Krystyna seems not to be Anna's daughter, given up for adoption at a young age. But the malleability of memory -- Krystyna's in an obvious way, though perhaps also Anna's -- is treated more interestingly than in some of Agnieszka Holland's better known movies, such as "Olivier, Olivier" or "Europa, Europa." Almost as interesting as some real life cases: The erstwhile mental illness "fugue" comes to mind (see, for example, the Times Literary Supplement, 16 July 1999; as this is a movie database, I'll also point to "Paris, Texas" for a portrayal of the phenomenon). So does the case of Benjamin Wilkomirski. I could but won't extend this list.

On the negative side, the description of Jewish life in New York is a mixture of inappropriately projected Christian norms and condescension (maybe due to unfamiliarity, or laziness of imagination).