On paper, plenty about the premise of Sean Baker鈥檚 suggests the high possibility that a vexing nightmare is about to unfold. Ani, played with verve and vulnerability by Mikey Madison, is a sex worker living in the working-class Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach. At the Manhattan strip club where she dances she meets Ivan, who goes by Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), an impish, spoiled son of Russian oligarchs. They begin a relationship that鈥檚 at first purely transactional, but rapidly escalates into an intense, mutual infatuation between horny, impulsive 20-somethings.
After just a few days, they have a quickie Vegas wedding 鈥� no pre-nup 鈥� and word gets back to Vanya鈥檚 parents back in Russia, who definitely won鈥檛 stand for their goofy son bringing 鈥渟hame鈥� upon the family by marrying a 鈥減rostitute.鈥� They deploy his handler Toros (Karren Karagulian) to ensure the marriage is annulled; Toros in turn enlists a couple of burly henchmen to wrangle the couple and get them down to the courthouse. Ani and Vanya resist, to the deep irritation of everyone else involved.
Being a pop culture enthusiast who鈥檚 consumed an untold number of gritty American thrillers from the 鈥�80s and 鈥�90s and an embarrassingly incalculable number of hours of Law & Order: SVU, I鈥檝e become accustomed to expecting the bleakest while hoping for the best when encountering any of Anora鈥檚 elements on screen 鈥� sex workers, Russian oligarchs, whirlwind Vegas marriages, etc. Things don鈥檛 usually end well when these factors are at play. This is true especially for the sex workers, who historically have been subjected to voyeuristic condescension and violent fates, sometimes as vessels for moralizing cautionary tales. Like, say, most of the women in , or the daughter of Jake Van Dorn (George C. Scott) in .
And so, when henchmen Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), and Igor (Yura Borisov) showed up on Vanya鈥檚 doorstep in Anora, I kept waiting for the other to drop, worriedly anticipating that Ani鈥檚 scrappy and expletive-laden reactions to the sudden implosion of her newly-wedded bliss would get her seriously hurt, or worse. But it never plays out like that.
Toros and his underlings are more nettled security guard types than they are by-any-means-necessary brutes; they at first respond to her outbursts as though she were a belligerent drunk trying to get inside the club, calm but insistent that she鈥檒l never be a part of this family.
After several minutes, it becomes clear they don鈥檛 want to physically harm her 鈥� amazingly for a movie made in 2024, no gun is ever wielded, even as a threat. But they do have a job to do, and Baker finds After Hours-like comedic chaos in their exasperated attempts to coerce Ani to do as they say with the least amount of force, and in their search for Vanya all over Brighton Beach after he runs off.
Baker鈥檚 been carving out an auteurist's legacy for years now, crafting quietly political stories by deliberately avoiding sensationalizing people and communities living on the margins. In Starlet, an ascendant young porn actress in Los Angeles forges a sweet friendship with a lonely elderly woman. The lo-fi Tangerine is a poignant day-in-the-life dramedy about a pair of transgender sex workers and friends. Red Rocket, his last film before Anora, is about Mikey, a faded porn star who returns to his small Texas hometown in an attempt to regroup and eventually find his way back into the industry. If there鈥檚 any stigma to be found in these films, it comes from characters within the narrative, as when Mikey gets turned down for jobs because of his adult film past.
Anora fits squarely in Baker鈥檚 oeuvre, and part of what makes it special is its laser-like focus on prioritizing character-building over communicating a 鈥渕essage.鈥� Even so, no movie exists in a vacuum, and no viewer comes to a movie without bringing their entire being 鈥� memories, biases, experiences 鈥� with them. Baker鈥檚 disarmingly lighthearted and non-judgmental perspective lands in a different time than Starlet did in 2012, or Red Rocket did just three years ago. Sex work has moved ever so slightly from the fringes into the mainstream 鈥� OnlyFans is a household name now, for one 鈥� and some within the profession have even seen advances in , though .
Still, the same judgmental attitudes Vanya鈥檚 parents cast upon Ani persist in real life 鈥� most recently, for example, in social media chatter following the accusations and criminal charges against. And sex work continues to be demonized and sometimes all-too-easily conflated with industries like human trafficking, which has become one of the foremost moral panics currently preoccupying the religious right and conspiracy theorists 鈥� see: Pizzagate, and the 2023 hagiographic box office hit starring prominent QAnon supporter Jim Caviezel.
If you know nothing of Anora going into it, is it even possible to watch without wondering how it might try to channel the fever-pitched fantasies of a Death Wish or Hardcore, drawing explicitly upon the anxieties of the moment?
Baker seems to have anticipated certain genre expectations, as well as the realities of violence鈥檚 pervasiveness: After the marriage is officially kaput and pitiful Vanya鈥檚 on his way back to Russia with his parents, Ani asks Igor suspiciously why he didn鈥檛 try to rape her; she seems almost offended by his passiveness. It鈥檚 a fraught question that hints at the real dangers she faces daily in her profession and as a woman, and perhaps, some past trauma the audience never learns of.
[The following paragraphs contain plot details for Anora. Stop here if you haven't seen the film yet and want to avoid spoilers.]
The last stretch of Anora, including a brilliantly ambiguous final scene, is about as heavy as it gets. At its core it鈥檚 a romantic dramedy that鈥檚 gotten, though it seems even more spiritually akin to Federico Fellini鈥檚 Nights of Cabiria (the basis for the American musical Sweet Charity), about a sex worker and hopeless romantic in Rome who keeps picking the worst kind of men to get attached to. That film is bookended by two separate occurrences in which a would-be paramour attempts to kill Cabiria in order to steal her money.
Anora鈥檚 Vanya isn鈥檛 violent toward Ani in the slightest. And at least at first, he seems genuinely into her and the romanticized idea of her, in that hormonal, completely irrational and fleeting kind of way middle-schoolers crush on one another. But he is a spineless man-child living off his parents鈥� wealth and wholly incapable of forming deep connection with anything other than his vape pen and video game console. And he鈥檚 completely conflict-avoidant: He lets his parents find out about Ani and the marriage through the rumor mill, and runs away like the scamp he is once he has to face the consequences, leaving a mortified Ani to fend for herself. She wants desperately to save this relationship, but he鈥檚 giving her absolutely nothing to work with.
Perhaps Anora really is a nightmare in its own very specific way. The horror isn鈥檛 sexual violence, however 鈥� it鈥檚 the obfuscating naivete of immaturity. Like Cabiria, Ani鈥檚 journey is that of a woman pouring her hopes and dreams into a guy, only to come to the slow realization he鈥檚 a pathetic disappointment.. Honestly, it鈥檚 so relatable.
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