Anora is Three Wild Films Rolled into One
Spiky and bittersweet, Anora is the sex worker dramedy with a difference – and it’s launched its star into the stratosphere.
good.film
2 months ago
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Some movies come at you like a bolt out of the blue. And Anora’s secret weapon is its star in the title role. If you haven’t heard of Mikey Madison, make space in your brain cells, because it’s a performance so full of verve, it’s like a shaken-up bottle of sparkling wine. Actually, make that French champagne: the voters loved it in Cannes, where Anora was awarded the prestigious Palme d’Or for best feature.
It’s a spicy and surprising dramedy, covering the fizzy whirlwind romance between Brooklyn stripper Ani (Mikey Madison) and Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the playboy son of a Russian oligarch with endless cash to splash. He springs from the wealthy elite. She spins on poles in the world’s oldest service industry. Surely this can’t end well… unless it’s true love?
It’s fertile soil for filmmaker Sean Baker, who’s explored the world of sex workers in five of his eight features so far, including Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket. But the whole world’s in agreement that this is his best yet. If you’re fearing frothy vibes, Anora offers much more. The film peels back, with sophistication, complex ideas of exploitation, self-worth and the oh-so-fuzzy line between a transaction and a true connection.
The energy is immediate when we meet Anora (it’s Ani for short) at her workplace: a montage of purple neon, pulsing tunes and US bills being tucked into all kinds of barely-there outfits. Baker shows us Ani’s a professional – a likeable, take-no-BS kinda girl, great at what she does. (Madison did a heap of prep for the role in real strip clubs, even down to what kind of Tupperware the dancers use on their lunch breaks). Of course, her job is an act. But how much of that bravado is put on, and how much is really her?
We sense there’s more than just the “usual service” when she meets Vanya at her club. She thinks he’s cute and funny, and not just because she’s being paid to – we see it on her face when Vanya’s not looking. It’s clever directing. Ani was picked because she speaks Russian – maybe that’s enough to FEEL like a connection, in the absence of anything more real?
Vanya’s so taken with Ani, he asks to see her alone. Then again. Then for a week. And she quickly discovers he’s from the kind of family you can Google to check their personal wealth. Suddenly, Ani’s more invested. When the private jet rides and penthouse suites in Vegas kick in, the line between personal and professional starts to blur (and not just from all the cocaine and Veuve Cliquot).
It’s a glimpse into excess, and it’s important that Baker sets up the “fairytale” before he breaks it. Vanya and Ani have a spectacular time together; obviously, there’s the sex (one of the movie’s big laughs comes when Vanya moans God Bless America! from under Ani’s curves), but there’s a genuinely fun montage of partying, sunset kisses and shopping sprees with eye-watering price tags. It’s a cute (if gauche) little honeymoon, but they both know it’s short lived. Ani’s week is nearly up, and Vanya’s due back to Russia soon for work. Unless…
Hey, it’s no spoiler. The quickie wedding is ZERO surprise. They’re in Vegas, after all – and when Ani demands at least 3 karats on her finger, Vanya shoots back without a blink, How about 4 or 5? Or 6? It’s such a stark encapsulation of the power imbalance between them: a diamond that Ani would likely never afford is just a line item for Vanya, something he can obtain in a heartbeat. When Ani’s workmates scream You hit the lotto, bitch! it’s hard to disagree. She quits her job, of course – why work when your new husband can buy anything you need?
Naturally, Baker takes Anora somewhere to sober up. What’s reality like when the champagne goes flat? Who did Ani really marry? For all his charm, in the light of day Vanya’s a 21-year-old, frat boy rich kid. He has some cool ideas for apps (cue eyeroll). He smokes bongs on his PlayStation and slides on his socks like Risky Business when the doorbell rings; still a goofy teen, an adult on paper only. Hey, if your Dad had immense wealth, you might stretch your teenage years out as long as you could too. But it extends Anora’s running theme of the powerful versus the powerless – and tweaks it into children versus adults. Ani’s absolutely more worldy than Vanya, but she’s still only 23. Was this whole idea just crazy naive?
We don’t have to wait long to find out. Ringing that doorbell are Armenian goons working for Vanya’s family (he calls them my father’s monkeys) who’ve caught wind of his marriage, and been sent to annul it. Chaos literally ensues: a 28-minute scene of comic biting, smashed homewares, language confusion and an innovative use of a phone cord that’s up there with Home Alone for cinema’s funniest home invasion. And it underlines that really, these are absolutely just kids playing a grown-up’s game. Vanya doesn't own anything. It’s not his house, it’s his parents. His bedroom isn’t the luxurious suite with the silk sheets they’ve been writhing on – it’s the one with spaceships on the walls. In his family’s eyes, he's a spoiled brat that refuses to grow up.
We see the layers of shock and confusion, even betrayal, on Ani’s face when the head fixer, Toros (Karren Karagulian) tells her in no uncertain terms that If you think for a second this is happening you're dead wrong. Vanya’s parents are on their way to take him back to Russia like a naughty school boy, and their marriage is getting annulled. She explains they’re in love, and Baker shifts the stakes up a gear. You do not love him, do you understand? That's in your head! Toros yells at her. I am telling you YOU DO NOT KNOW THIS GUY. I’ve been dealing with his shit since he was 6 years old!
The power has swung, and Baker rams it home when Ani defiantly pulls out what she THINKS is her trump card, totally made up on the spot – the way we’ve been going at it, I’m probably already pregnant. The kicker from Toros? I hope you're joking, because we'll have to take care of that too. It’s suddenly obvious what Ani’s up against. A family with immense wealth and a steel will. A combination that means they can probably make anything happen, and make anything they don’t like disappear.
There’s some meaty stuff in Anora that pokes at the whole concept of love as a financial exchange, and the societal perceptions of sex work. The deal is clear at the start: he gets a girlfriend for a week, and she gets $15K. Even then, Baker toys with the idea of worth when Ani cheekily tells Vanya she would’ve done it for 10, and he grins If I were you I wouldn’t do it for less than 30. For Vanya, it’s small change for what he’s getting: companionship, pleasure, and a comrade (is he homesick?) who ‘gets’ his Russianness. Ani even makes him a better lover, teaching him how to slow down and last longer. His response? I think I love you.
Of course, Ani’s being paid to be someone to fall in love WITH, and even to pretend to love him too. And at the end of their week, when she tells Vanya she’ll miss him, he wonders aloud Will you miss me, or my money? What Baker is playing with here is how diamonds and drugs and jets and wealth blur the lines to breaking point. Where does the ‘job’ finish and reality begin? When a 4 karat diamond appears? (or 5, or 6?) Vanya and Ani seem to share a genuine connection, but how can Vanya trust that when Ani’s job is literally to create that connection? And on the flip side, how does Ani know Vanya’s feelings are real, when his wealth means he could simply buy another girlfriend – or wife – next week?
The other layer to this is the stigma that Ani faces as a sex worker. We’re never shown if Ani has taken private work with other men before, but her sense of ease at Vanya’s home tells us it’s probably not new to her. She’s possibly even had clients like Toros, a man in his 50s, in the past. But since she’s now a problem for him, her label changes. In his eyes, she’s a hooker – a scheming prostitute set to take all his money. And Toros is the eyes of Vanya’s family. Very quickly, Baker establishes a huge gulf in class that Ani can’t ever hope to climb out of. She screams in frustration when they pull off her new diamond ring, but it’s less about the gem and more about her agency being stripped away. You don't understand, Toros tells her, with a final thump of reality. He's shamed his family by marrying someone like you.
It’s really this idea of identity and self worth that Sean Baker plunges into in Anora’s final act. Ani’s already in shock, but when Vanya runs from Toros and his cronies – leaving her behind with a trio of threatening strangers – she’s in disbelief. Wait, has he abandoned her? Or is he just running to enact another plan; another magic act in the show he’s put on to wow her? Either way, he’s not there to support her, and their ‘bond’ has been broken at the first hint of trouble. A millennial marriage worthy of E! News. Great husband you have, Toros smirks. He leaves you, then he won’t answer your calls.
It’s a testament to the fantastically likeable performances of Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madison that we actually still like them as a couple and, although it seems doomed, we want them to work out. Like Ani, we’re weighing up if Vanya really betrayed her – does he love her, or was he just acting out a fantasy the whole time, long after it became real for Ani? He’s essentially turned the tables on her. It’s an interesting idea; a microcosm of the wealthy yet again using (and disposing of) the vulnerable. Usually Ani is playing the role of the fantasist. Now her fairytale is crashing down. Just like it would feel for a client who pays Ani for a ‘girlfriend experience’, it all felt authentic to Ani – until the clock ran out.
Anora is, to put it bluntly, a wild ride. How else do you describe a film that uniquely straddles itself across romcom-crime-kidnap-fantasy-drama? Blow away the glitter, though, and the heart of Sean Baker’s film beats with poignancy; a take it from me, kid warning that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
It’s tempting to call Anora the Pretty Woman for a new millennium. But where that 90s classic buffed a Hollywood sheen onto an improbable romance, Anora’s emotional reality is cut from a much grittier cloth. We see Ani at her giddy peak and her lowest; using the allure that gives her power, then utterly used and disillusioned. It's hard to convey just how frustrated Ani feels when she finally tracks down her husband – at the very same strip club where they first met. And Baker builds the frustration to breaking point, when he reintroduces that same boy-man concept: Ani screams VANYA, BE A F***IN’ MAN AND TALK TO ME!
Without spoiling the ending, there’s a beautiful (and surprisingly emotional) catharsis to Anora that comes from the unlikeliest place – one of Toros’ hired hands. Over a slow-burn denouement, Igor (Yura Borisov) goes from Ani’s aggressor to her protector in a series of subtle ways (a scarf given on a freezing jetty; a blanket tossed for a night on the couch).
Gradually, he becomes the dependable man that Vanya the boy has proven NOT to be. Ani even jokes with Igor about his strong name (it means warrior), then explains that we don’t really give meaning to names in America. Hmmm, kind of ironic when in Ani’s line of work, every name is a pseudonym. She doesn’t even like to be called by her real name, Anora. But when Igor looks it up, he discovers its real meaning: honour.
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