CINEQUEST FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! Nora is the tale of former pop star and current housewife & mother-of-one Nora (Anna Campbell). Nora is one half of the pop group “Dakota Girls” along with her high school friend Bianca Jones (Briana Lane). As we joined Nora’s life in progress, she quit the group and left Los Angeles. She decided that she wanted to move back to her hometown along with her husband Leo (Max Lesser) and daughter Sadie (Sophie Mara Baaden), to have a normal life instead of forcing her daughter to grow up with an absentee, touring pop star mother.
In one of my high school literature classes, we read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a short story about a meek house husband, Walter, who perpetually daydreams of having an exciting life rather than the ‘boring’ family life that he currently leads. If he’s with his family, chances are he’s imagining that he’s a fighter pilot or something else equally dangerous. Nora is sort of like Walter Mitty if Walter Mitty had been a rock star prior to his boring, domesticated home life. While Walter fantasizes about what an exciting life he wishes he had, Nora fantasizes about one that she actually did have.
The problem is that once Nora gets what she wants, she discovers that it isn’t quite what she thought it would be. Her husband Leo (Max Lesser) has decided that he doesn’t want to leave his job as a tour manager for another band, which means that he is now the absentee parent who’s on the road for weeks or months at a time, the very thing that Nora wanted to leave behind. This effectively turns Nora into a single mother. This doesn’t seem so bad until she becomes overwhelmed with responsibilities due to not knowing how to say “no”. Having an unsupportive mother (Terry, played by Lesley Ann Warren) doesn’t help her situation, either.
“…Nora is the tale of a pop star who leaves LA in pursuit of a traditional homelife…”
Nora’s daydreams manifest as songs in her head with fully produced music videos. She rarely steps around a corner or walks down a hallway without breaking into song. More so than Walter Mitty, this actually seems like it may even be pulling influence from Rachel Bloom’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” TV show, in which she did the exact same thing, albeit in a much more comedic fashion. Nora’s songs are always an expression of her current stressful situation. The first time she meets the teachers at her daughter’s school, it uncannily starts to feel like a group of Mean Girls-style bullies, and this shows up directly in her following fantasy music video. Nora’s life continues to spiral until she meets another musician who subconsciously encourages her to re-follow her real dream.
At first, the sheer amount of musical performances made me question whether this film was actually a vehicle created by a musician to put their music in front of a movie-watching audience. However, upon discovering that the music was not written by Campbell but by Noah Harmon (The Airborne Toxic Event), I realized that this film was actually written by an actress and a mother who didn’t want to make an autobiography but rather something loosely influenced by her own life.
Anna Campbell pulls triple duty on Nora as writer, director, and lead actor. One might think this is tough to pull off as an indie filmmaker, but Campbell proves herself adept at wearing all three hats.
Nora screened at the 2025 Cinequest Film Festival.
"…If Walter Mitty had been a rock star in his prior life, this might be his story."
