By Sean Baker’s return to New York City cinema has been nothing short of triumphant. With ANORA, Baker became the first American director to win the Palme d’Or in Cannes since Terence Malick brought us THE TREE OF LIFE in 2011 (both handed out by American jury presidents, since we are obsessed with ourselves). ANORA is not the madcap fairytale romance Neon marketed it as; rather, it’s an insightful study into a shrewd, but hot-headed, woman pushed to her limits in a country that places more value on wealthy foreign interests than on the rights of everyday Americans.
I’ll get this out of the way up top: Mikey Madison is both stunningly beautiful and a refined performer. She has the kind of face that men would go to war for, back when men did more land combat. Seriously, I felt like I was watching Monica Vitti in RED DESERT for the first time. Baker’s camera noninvasively reveres Madison from the start, following her face in a tracking close up as she grinds on a john’s lap. Anora (Mikey Madison) is a stripper who prefers to be called Ani and commutes to a Manhattan club from a small Brighton Beach apartment; it’s just another day at the office for Ani when she’s selected as an escort for Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), also called Ivan, because she has a novice understanding of the dulcet tones of his mother tongue, the Russian language. Ivan is young, dumb, and full of cum, and Ani is more than ready to take as much of his money as possible. The bored, oversexed, zombie-eyed 21-year-old son of a Russian oligarch and a gorgeous, streetwise New York City stripper; can I make it any more obvious?
At Ivan’s behest, they’re married in Las Vegas within a week.
And then they lived happily ever after… Just kidding! Not two weeks after Ani has moved into “Ivan’s” Brooklyn mansion, kissing the strip joint goodbye, the real owners of the house hear about the marriage through the grapevine, and they are pissed. Ivan’s parents send their goons Toros (Karren Karagulian) and Igor (COMPARTMENT NO. 6’s excellent Yuriy Borisov) to take the newlyweds down to the courthouse for a nice, old-fashioned annulment, whether they want to or not. Ani’s Cinderella story evaporates once Ivan immediately runs away from the consequences of his actions as fast as his designer sneakers will carry him, leaving Ani with his parents’ henchmen and coming face to face with the realization that she has more in common with Toros and Igor than she does with Ivan; she’s just another pawn in the games insane rich people play.
Where Baker’s last film, RED ROCKET, followed a cash-poor, petty man-child exploiting those below him on the food chain, ANORA follows a loudmouthed Brooklyn girl who, no matter how much hard-earned bravado she exhibits, is exploited by an even younger man-child and his unstoppably wealthy parents. Ani might be street-smart, but money is the only thing that talks once you reach a certain tax bracket. A lot of people are referring to ANORA as a Cinderella story, but the most fairytale aspect of the film are the clear-cut ideas of who is “good” and who is “evil,” especially for Baker’s cinema, which generally doesn’t feature heroes and villains. ANORA is more about the transactional nature of love (which has been around since the oldest profession itself) and the effect this lifestyle has on Ani. Ani uses her sexuality to get Ivan’s attention, even as he’s literally buying it from her; she thinks she’s weaponized her sexuality, when in reality, it’s being used against her.
A small part of her, a naïve part perhaps, allowed her to believe that her marriage to Ivan was her ticket out of the mud, that even if it wasn’t fairytale love, he might at least care about her enough to not abandon her at the first sign of trouble. To his credit, Baker isn’t passing judgment on Ani for taking her chance at wealth; to a discerning audience, it may be an obvious mistake, but to a lot of young women without resources, marrying the son of a millionaire would be a no-brainer. After she sells herself to Ivan and he throws it away, what is left of Ani for herself? Ani doesn’t have the luxury of a ton of time to mull over this question, what with looming henchmen demanding Ivan’s location. They’re not asking so nicely.
ANORA isn’t Baker’s first rodeo when it comes to capturing the lives of sex workers; the film joins Baker’s darkly funny oeuvre of films that tackle sex work in a non-sensationalized way. Baker has dedicated much of his career to humanizing sex workers of all kinds from across the United States onscreen through a blend of light humor and stark honesty, from porn stars in STARLET and RED ROCKET to Backpage girls in TANGERINE and THE FLORIDA PROJECT. This is tied to his steadfast commitment to making films independently, on his own terms; recently, Baker has been supporting other independent filmmakers’ unique visions through his role as an executive producer, including Joanna Arnow’s recent BDSM comedy THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR DOING SOMETHING HAS PASSED. On his own films, Baker has historically worked with a lot of non-actors on small budgets, far away from nosy, out-of-touch producers who may have unsolicited opinions on what a sex worker might wear, say, or do. I look forward to reading what sex workers themselves have to write about ANORA.
Okay, so I may have fibbed a little earlier; ANORA does feature a touch of fairytale love, but it has more to do with the subtle feeling of being seen for who you really are. There’s no storybook romance, and whatever true affection exists certainly doesn’t take place between the newlyweds. Igor shows Ani a gentle kindness from the beginning, even when she’s physically fighting him, which is uncharacteristic for a tough Russian gangster, as easy on the eyes as he is. Ani is not receptive to Igor’s softness at first, calling him names like “faggot-ass bitch.” No one could blame her for taking her sweet time to warm up to him considering the forceful circumstances, but Ani and Igor are not afforded the luxury of a grand romance. This isn’t because the film is underdeveloped, but because there are more pressing problems of a spoiled brat run amok and his parents’ total lack of control over him.
I’m almost afraid to ask questions like “How did we get to the point in American life that the wishes of ultra rich foreign business interests overpower the autonomy of our citizens?,” because this would pull on a thread that is much darker than any of us wish to imagine. Just days after my ANORA screening, the mayor of New York City Eric Adams was indicted on five federal corruption charges related to bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and soliciting campaign donations from foreign nationals. According to the indictment, Adams has been selling out New Yorkers for the past decade to curry favor with the Turkish government. Ani’s speedy rise to wealth and steep fall may seem like a movie fantasy, but it’s not as far-fetched as we may want to believe. Baker’s film focuses on Russian oligarchs, but one could most likely replace them with Turkish oligarchs, and get a similar outcome; the throughline here being the never-quenched greed of the American state. ANORA could never happen to me; not because the United States government would protect me from rich Russian psychos kidnapping me, but because I am nowhere near as bad of a bitch as Mikey Madison.
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