Anora, 2024.
Written and Directed by Sean Baker.
Starring Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Yura Borisov, Vache Tovmasyan, Ivy Wolk, Luna Sofía Miranda, Ross Brodar, Lindsey Normington, Darya Ekamasova, Emily Weider, Alena Gurevich, Paul Weissman, Aleksey Serebryakov, Ella Rubin, Vincent Radwinsky, Brittney Rodriguez, Sophia Carnabuci, Anton Bitter, Zoë Vnak, Vlad Mamai, Maria Tichinskaya, Morgan Charlton, Nazar Khamis, Lana Svidonovich, Mariana Orozco Arango, and Artyom Trubnikov.
SYNOPSIS:
Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch.
Writer/director Sean Baker’s latest feature, Anora, is so many things that shouldn’t be spoiled since, aside from the immersion dripping with urgency and chaotic scrambling-around-New-York-City tension, it is unpredictable and consistently shapeshifting into other subgenres. There comes a point where its characters are locked into into an inescapable conflict that often plays out in real time over extended stretches. If someone says they will arrive in 10 minutes, you can rest assured that Sean Baker has more than enough madcap screwball comedy material laced with suspenseful danger to fill up that time. During these lengthy stretches, characters are also typically shouting at one another, except even the antagonists seemingly have justifiable points to make even if, simultaneously, they are cruelly shaming sex work and belittling a flawed woman considerably easy to empathize with; Sean Baker also fixates the camera on star Mikey Madison’s facial expressions and eyes during those scenes, which either see her screaming back and defending her life choices or sulking and letting that shame creep in.
It also probably shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the eponymous Anora, who prefers to go by Ani, comes from what could be considered part of the sex work world; Sean Baker has dedicated his career to telling stories about such characters and has enormously succeeded with complex, morally challenging, and emotionally flooring works such as The Florida Project and Red Rocket. No one shines a nonjudgmental, empathetic light on underexplored communities like him.
Anora is yet another film that fits that mold. It follows the whirlwind fairytale love that blossoms between Russian-American strip club private dancer Ani (a richly layered performance from Mikey Madison that should catapult her to the position of choosing whatever roles she wants in Hollywood) and a silver-spooned Russian-speaking 21-year-old client living a life of excess, born into absurd wealth.
His name is Ivan (Mark Eidelshtein, appropriately buffoonish, childish, and silly while expressing a soft side.) He’s an example of the arrested development that comes with a young man having the power to throw money at whatever he wants in life, including the working class Ani (social class hierarchies loom over everything that plays out here), who senses more than another customer to hustle, but also a sweet side and a crazy energetic, adventurous soul. Naturally, she is also likely attracted to that excessively wealthy, partying lifestyle he can share with her. Nevertheless, they soon enter a girlfriend experience arrangement, with Ani receiving $15,000 to be his girlfriend for the week and appearing at various parties while traveling with his friend group.
Once the deal is closed, she shows signs of vulnerability, admitting that she would have done it for $10,000. Even though Ivan is a dopey stoner who seemingly knows nothing about being a real adult or managing a relationship (whenever he is not enacting part of that deal for sex, he is smoking and playing video games, making no real effort to get to know her) or sex itself (he clearly comes across like someone who watches an unhealthy amount of porn, trying too hard to impress during intercourse and finishing fast until Ani suggests slower, more passionate thrusts to preserve some of that stamina), there is an attraction that does go somewhere beyond skin deep, even if not by much. Ani genuinely feels special to Ivan, and her life is rapidly changing for the leisurely and luxuriously better. It gets to the point where Ani can quit the strip club, with most coworkers happy for her except for a consistently jealous and bitter one (Lindsey Normington) taunting her that this relationship, which quickly becomes an actual marriage, will not last.
Watching the film, we also doubt how deep this love goes or if any of this is sustainable. However, where Sean Baker takes the film is an outrageous surprise that adds an element of danger to the proceedings while forcing Ani to reckon with how well she actually knows this man. Without saying much, some enforcers of Ivan’s family get involved (his parents are unhappy about the marriage), all three expressing an incredible range from hilarity to threats to sensitivity. The ringleader of the three is Karren Karagulian’s Toros, a strung-out friend of the family in charge of dealing with the situation, unlikable for how he looks down on Ani and everything about this relationship/marriage, but also someone potentially right that this is a mistake and worth hearing out as someone who has been cleaning up Ivan’s mistakes for years. As much as we might want this love to endure, there is never any questioning that Ivan is nothing more than a 21-year-old child.
There are also two goons; one is immediately relegated to toughing out slapstick pain and comedic relief. Meanwhile, the other is Igor (Yura Borisov), a muscular yet sensitive hired help who regularly shows respect and kindness to Ani even when he is forced to act against her wishes. In an ensemble of terrific performances from the top of the cast to the bottom, Yura Borisov is a secret weapon that slowly but surely gives the film an extra emotional charge.
Throughout the electric misadventures from there, there is also a profound sadness that Ani is lying to herself about who Ivan is. Nuanced juxtapositions along the way make the point, eventually leading to an arresting, gloomy climax that utilizes ambient sound from a car, as if it pulsates that moment. It is a powerful cathartic release yet also brimming with sadness underneath. Like most of Sean Baker’s endings, it stays with you as you turn it over in your head several times until it becomes etched in your mind as an unforgettable thinker of mixed emotions.
As always, Sean Baker knows when to let scenes play out and enrich characters and when to utilize a kinetic editing style (he is once again the editor of his film) that shows everything from partying to sex to living it up. Even if the initial setup feels a bit long, it establishes much about these characters to take moving forward, not to mention there are enough sex shots to almost make up for years’ worth of Hollywood prudishness. Once it morphs into a livewire stressful series of events, there is a relentless exhilaration while running the gamut of emotions. This is the ensemble of the year (so far), with Mikey Madison delivering exceptionally bold work, often veering between crafty, naïve, fierce, and vulnerable pain, driving Anora as a heart-pounding concoction of intimacy, danger, tested marriage, and asserting self-worth.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
