1926. A mother and her young daughter come to Los Angeles. The mother is chasing her dream: she wants to conquer Hollywood, no matter the cost. Her little girl, Anastasia, is the perfect candidate to be cinema’s next big star. But can she stand the pressure? The clash of dreams and the dirty reality of show business is a heavy burden to bear, as Anastasia comes face to face with the crime, abuse, and murky secrets of an all-powerful industry. A story that calls into question the so-called golden era of Hollywood, when the “dream factory” resembled a Byzantine empire, above the law and fed by vanity and greed.
“If Sunset Boulevard is the gold standard for this type of story, Anastasia wraps in arthouse and exploitation elements that drive home the inherent melodrama and add a lurid quality to it, making it feel close to a David Lynch film not just in surrealist touches but philosophically as well, making jarring use of the very exploitation it criticizes to make the viewer (or reader in this case) question their own involvement with this process. It becomes a jarring and disturbing feminist statement.” Comics Beat
