Anora
Sean Baker has a soft spot for boy bands. His 2021 film Red Rocket opened with a mood-setting beat drop of NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” (years before Deadpool & Wolverine tried to commandeer it) and in his latest film, Take That’s “Greatest Day” plays as we tour the strip club workplace of the eponymous character we’re about to meet. Maybe it’s because boy bands represent a form of escapism for young girls, a theme Baker has explored multiple times now in his films. Or maybe it’s simply because boy band songs slap. Both takes are valid in the Palme d’Or winning Anora, a film that’s part love story, part chase movie and part frenetic one-nighter through the streets of New York.
Anora (Mikey Madison) works at a strip club. She has mostly good relationships with her employers and colleagues (save for her enemy whose name is Diamond) and speaks Russian, a point that comes in very handy when a 21-year-old high roller named Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) visits one night. He’s the son of a Russian oligarch and he’s in the US to “study”, which in Russian oligarchian means “party and play video games in my Brighton Beach mansion”. After hiring Anora for several ‘dates’, Ivan makes a decent proposal: that she gives him the girlfriend experience for a week for the cool sum of $15,000. She accepts, teasing that she’d have accepted for 10k. He says he would’ve paid 30k, had she asked.
Crown Casino on a Tuesday night.
After a week of partying and jack rabbit sex, Ivan makes another proposal: that they fly to Vegas and get married. He wants a green card so the motive is hardly ulterior, but there’s benefit for Anora, too. Her initial skepticism fades as Ivan insists that he loves her (and promises massive caratage for her engagement ring), so off they go to the land of elopement and bad decisions. When they return, however, there are hired goons banging down the door. News of the nuptials have reached Ivan’s parents and they’re not pleased, so they’ve instructed Ivan’s Godfather and Orthodox priest Toros (Karren Karagulian) and his henchmen Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yuriy Borisov) to strong arm an annulment. Unfortunately for them, Ivan legs it and Anora puts up much more of a fight than they were expecting. Hilarity, and something of a road movie, ensues.
On the surface, Anora is about what happens to Cinderella when her husband’s parents are Russian oligarchs who don’t like working class girls from Brooklyn. Beneath it, it’s about class disparity and the disposal of people once they’ve served their purpose as entertainment for the elites.
“Hit me!”
Written and directed by Baker, Anora’s setup has been compared to Pretty Woman. But it bears more tonal and aesthetic similarities to Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky, Scorsese’s After Hours and the Safdie brothers’ Good Time, its 35mm film stock complementing the mania and heightened tension that suits the subject matter. Baker was deliberate about how he wanted the film to look and feel, reuniting with Red Rocket cinematographer Drew Daniels to give Anora “a formal and controlled aesthetic with choreographed camera moves caught with anamorphic wide-screen images, a deliberate color scheme and unobtrusive but stylish lighting.”
“Essentially, I wanted to give a polished presentation to a story that hasn’t really gotten one in American cinema since the 70’s.” - Sean Baker
He’s been working overtime to do so. Baker’s most recent films - Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket - have all explored sex work from a humanist, non-judgemental angle. His casting often features a blend of actors and non-actors/real sex workers, giving his films a level of authenticity that’s scarcely seen in today’s cinema. Anora is no different, featuring lesser known names and actors of different backgrounds to weave together a world that feels realistic, even if the events we witness are outlandish.
Occupational hazards of a henchman.
Where Anora differs from other films with similar narrative setups (Zola, The Hangover even) is that once the resolution comes, Baker forces the audience to stay on for a beat longer to witness the impact the events we’ve just watched actually have on the central character. For some, this tracks as a departure from the film’s tone and a bit of a downer to end on. For me, it’s an important insight into the way marginalised people are often cast aside once the rich have had their fun.
It’s a theme echoed in the audience’s enjoyment of the film and its character interactions. We cackle as the burly Igor struggles to contain Anora’s wrath and surprising strength. And at Toros’ abrupt departure from a Christening he’s leading because Ivan’s fuckup is his to rectify. And at Garnick as he holds frozen tortellini to his nose after receiving an unexpected foot to the face. It’s hilarious, but only because the consequences are not ours to feel.
How we all wish Russian tough guys would look at us.
As Anora and the Henchmen (a great band name) search Brooklyn, Coney Island and Manhattan for signs of Ivan, bonds are formed that have less to do with enjoying each other’s company and more to do with the fact that there’s a widening and obvious gap between the seekers, the sought and his scary parents. Class camaraderie is a powerful thing, but not as powerful as money and influence.
At the heart of Anora’s rags to riches (to rags) tale is Mikey Madison, hand selected by Baker after he saw her brief but ferocious performance as a Manson cult member in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and then again as one of the villains in Scream V. Her turn as the Brooklyn working girl with a hard as nails exterior is career making, a perfect blend of funny, scrappy and vulnerable. To wear the skin of Anora, Madison threw herself into research at different strip clubs, spoke to sex workers, took up fitness classes to gain the strength for pole routines (“I’m not a dancer,” she maintains) and worked with a dialect coach to perfect the Brighton Beach accent. Oh, and learned Russian.
'“Mum says we’ve gotta get you an annulment.”
Then there’s her supporting cast, stacked with actors whose work I’ve made a note to seek out. Long time Baker collaborator Karren Karagulian is fantastic as the exasperated and chronically ‘over it’ Toros, as are Vache Tovmasyan as the butt of all jokes Garnick and Yuriy Borisov as man-of-few-words-but-plenty-of-looks Igor. They may not be Anora’s friends by the end, but these are the kind of Coen Brothers goons a girl could only dream of.
By the end of Anora, it’s clear that Take That lied. Not only was meeting Ivan not the “Greatest Day” for our heroine, it was the beginning of quite a traumatic and demoralising series of events. But it was also the catalyst for the lowering of walls, however painful it might be after years of careful construction. It’s comforting to know that Sean Baker is still out there telling stories from perspectives most of us would never otherwise encounter, and smashing down our prejudices in the process.
Verdict:
☆☆☆☆½
Anora is in cinemas Boxing Day.
