Director: Sean Baker
Writer: Sean Baker
Stars: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov
Synopsis: Anora is a comedy about a sex worker shot in New York City and Las Vegas.
During his short yet acclaimed film career, Sean Baker went from grounded to hyper-extended. But that doesn’t remove how the indie-cinema darling is known to depict the lives of people who are frowned upon by the upper class. His characters always hold onto that promise that “the American Dream” has sold to them – looking for that moment to change their lives. It is a false advertisement that many people continue to follow. Yet, it gives them hope, even if their chances of moving into their dream house or having an easy life are slim.
The reason Sean Baker’s cinema works and why many have grown attached to his filmmaking is because he explores their world with curiosity, empathy, and sincerity. You genuinely sense how much research and deep dives he does before writing his characters. In his latest work, Anora (which won the Palme d’Or in this year’s Cannes Film Festival), Baker remains with his current trend of delivering portraits of the “American Dream” through the lens of sex workers, hoping to remove the stigma around them. Here, we see it through the perspective of the young titular character, who has possibly her one-way ticket to a more lavish life that she’s been aching for.
Halfway through the movie, Baker shifts the screwball comedy texture (don’t take the comedy part of it too literally) into one with heavier dramatic weight. A big heart is lingering around the film, intertwined with sadness, benignity, and hopelessness that help broaden the emotional scope of Baker’s storytelling. With great confidence, he maneuvers through all of those feelings, even when the narrative garners some less-than-realistic swings – keeping the project in balance and its crux intact. This is a director growing into a tone technician right before our eyes.
The stellar Mikey Madison plays Anora, who prefers to be called Ani. She’s a twenty-three-year-old exotic dancer at a New York City strip club named Headquarters. She dances for her clients, and if it is convenient for her, Ani works as a sex worker late at night. She is in full command of her life; Ani knows precisely what she is doing and wants in life – always maintaining her head high even in the most dire situations. It is a tough life, yet Ani is more than determined and proud of how she makes her earnings. But she would drop everything if there was a chance to get the life of her dreams. Who wouldn’t? I think everyone would do the same thing if given the opportunity.
Well, for Ani, that moment is right around the corner with the appearance of Ivan Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), a twenty-one-year-old Russian big spender and son of an oligarch. Ivan, who is living freely doing whatever he likes with his parents’ endless supply of cash, requests a dancer who can speak Russian for the day. Out of mere luck, Ani fits that billing, even if her grasp of the language is limited. He becomes enamored with the dancer, spending a few paid nights together. The two begin to click, nearly breaking the relationship between client and customer. Then, Ivan gets a crazy idea that will cause him much trouble with his family.
Since he has to return to Russia soon to work with his father, Ivan takes Ani on a week-long trip to Las Vegas, with all of her days being paid, to not only get one last taste of freedom but also marry the dancer he has fallen in love with so he can stay in the U.S. Ani immediately accepts; she now has her way into the secured life where she’s wealthy and happy, having taken a liking to the oligarch’s son. But everything comes crashing down in a Safdie Brothers’ manner when Ivan’s parents get a notice about the whole thing. As a means to get the marriage annulled, they send Toros (Karren Karagulian) and his goons (Yuriy Borisov and Vache Tovmasyan) to handle the situation one way or another.
To avoid them, Ivan runs away, leaving Ani to deal with the three men, who have nowhere to go until everything is resolved. And so, a search for him begins. Emotions are all over the place collectively. Ani is worried and anxious about how everything is going to go down. The goons are obligating her to follow suit, or they’ll take matters into their own hands. This creates a parallel between her life previously and post-meeting Ivan, where before, she was in full command of her life, and now, men are trying to control every aspect of it afterward. But Ani is resilient and defiant, not indulging in what they set her up to do so easily.
That’s one of the many reasons we, as an audience, begin to care for and want to protect Ani at any given turn. This is a statement about Baker’s writing, which seems to improve with each feature due to the nuance he gives to his characters and the understanding behind their decisions, as well as Mikey Madison’s astonishing (and hopefully star-making) performance, which will have everybody raving. Madison is effortlessly magnetic, oozing confidence – matching Baker behind the camera – in the way she does a balancing act of desperation, feistiness, and vulnerability amidst the screwball and thriller-like tension that shifts Anora into a place of cinematic appraisal. There’s a light that shines in her presence, even in the alarming situations that occur; this makes sense since the meaning of her character’s name turns out to be honor and grace.
Although not to the same degree, her acting partner, Mark Eydelshteyn, doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. Eydelshteyn has a complex role in his hands, too. The young actor has to find a way to channel his character’s youthfulness and the intricacies of his lingering pain – the sadness within his timed freedom and the happiness that arises amidst his recklessness. It is all an escape for him. This can be seen more prevalent during the scenes where Ivan and Ani are intimate and open with one another. Both of them, even if they are content with their lives, have fractures in their soul that, with this new companionship, can be fixed to some degree. In Madison and Eydelshteyn’s performances, you see the depth of these characters, who initially looked thin-layered and uninteresting.
The authenticity that Sean Baker brings to the project makes everything tick. From the sweet romantic comedy and zaniness in the likes of The Lady Eve to the moments of tension that come into play later on, you get a test of the city, its people, and the outsiders who now bask in it. Baker takes time to capture the heart of Coney Island and Las Vegas, both in its liveliness and the gutter. They are their characters, part of the play in genre and tone Baker crafts and maintains steady. If you have read about his scouting process, you know how much time he takes to pick up local places that draw out the essence of the cities within the confines of his respective stories. And once again, he does such with great attention to detail.
Anora keeps an eye on the marginalized, as expected with Baker’s work, yet with a more playful and equally tactile touch. It is less distancing from the mainstream audience than before, but Baker doesn’t sacrifice what makes his films unique in appealing to a broader scope. He maintains everything in his wheelhouse while being kittenish in his direction. We don’t know if this will be a hit at the cinema. However, Anora has many fun moments and reflective breathing spaces to captivate the viewers – immersing them in Ani’s journey and fighting for her right to a better life.
