After she marries the heir to a billionaire's fortune (Mark Eydelshteyn) sex worker Anora (Mikey Madison) finds her her new life derailed when his family learns of the nuptials...
Now this is a movie!
Months have gone by since I have felt any jolt of electricity in the movie theatre.
I watch a few movies a month - good, bad, indifferent - and Anora is the first one for awhile where I felt fully awake and engaged.
I have not felt so elated coming out of a movie in ages. Only Love Lies Bleeding and Thelma this year have hit me in a similar way.
I have watched a couple of Sean Baker’s movies: Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket.
This might be my favourite.
The juggling of tone is masterful
I was almost never not laughing.
But the comedy never deflates the stakes.
My expectations for this movie would be that it would be grimmer. Sex workers are a persecuted minority in society, and the logline for Anora implies something more threatening and tense.
The film is tense, and its implications are bleak, but what makes the film so satisfying is how multifaceted it is.
Instead, Anora enjoys her job. In the opening shot, she rises into frame dancing a client, a broad smile on her face.
Initially it appears to be part of the show, part of drawing in customers. But the movie’s portrayal of the character is more nuanced than that.Part of what makes it so refreshing is that she enjoys her job.
The problems we see her deal with are familiar - arguing about rosters and petty squabbles with co-workers. She gets around using the bus and lives with her sister.
Ultimately, she is just a struggling prol, a working woman under capitalism.
I liked Anora so much I saw it a second time. Another reason why I went back was for clarification around Anora’s character andthe ending.
I think I misread Anora’s investment in her marriage.
On the one hand, their relationship starts out as a straightforward transactional arrangement.
Because of that, I started overthinking the nature of their relationship. I kept expecting some kind of revelation, or for there to be some kind of catalyst for Anora to fall for Ivan, beyond him being rich.
But that is it.
He offers Anora a ticket to financial security. His world is a fantasy and she buys into it.
Along with Anora, we are shown a world where any wish (money, gifts, a sudden trip to Las Vegas) can be granted on a whim. Anora’s willingness to become Ivan’s wife is understandable.
After my first viewing of Anora, I watched Baker’s previous film Red Rocket. It is fascinating going from a completely selfish, unsympathetic character to Anora - a sex worker who is not trying to use people.
Anie is at least honest with Ivan when setting out her professional perimeters and fees. Part of what she likes about him is that he never pushes back. He gives her whatever she asks for - until it becomes inconvenient for him.
To me, Ivan seemed like such an obvious asshole on first viewing I was surprised at how betrayed Anora feels when he pulls a runner.
Their sex life is awful. He just pounds away. We never see him try to give her pleasure. She shows him how to pace himself and it seems to be a revelation to him. His whole life is about instant gratification.
He is everything his minder Toros says he is.
The thing she seems to like about him - his seeming naivete - is actually willful ignorance.
His obliviousness comes from the insulation of his family’s wealth. He is completely immune to consequence or even shame. He is a spoilt child who can afford to cosplay, pretending to be an adult.
Despite her age and experience, Anora is still as susceptible as anyone. And once again I underestimated how important that jump in wealth would affect the character’s feelings.
Ivan is the only person in the film who is never shown struggling. His whole life is the pursuit of idle pleasures. Everyone else has a job - including his entourage.
Anora is closer to her antagonists than Ivan.
As the title character, Mikey Madison is magnificent. A warm, empathetic core wrapped in iron, she avoids turning Anora into a cliche - she is neither an action hero-adjacent archetype (ala the Angel movies), nor a hapless rube.
Madison juggles Anora’s positive, high energy professionalism with a savvy, fierce need to preserve her own financial security.
Alongside Madison, Karren Karagulian is great as Toros, a veteran hatchet man cursed by his job.
Starting out as a looming threat, as the movie progresses he emerges as an ordinary man under threat from his employer. Like Anie, he is trapped by economics. And like Anie, he has to fight to maintain the benefits of working for Ivan’s family.
Once the marriage is discovered, the movie kicks into high gear, turning into a farcical stop-and-start chase movie. Jokes build and pay off, occasionally running into and over each other, as Anie is forced into share space with Toros, silent enforcer Igor (Yura Borisov) and dopey Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan).
I am still not sure how I feel about the ending.
Throughout the movie, there has been a running tension between Anora and Igor. At first it is a divide based on language and missed social cues. The gulf between them is cemented when Igor physically restrains her.
As the movie progresses, it is pretty obvious that Igor is attracted to Anora, and increasingly disenchanted with his employer.
The film is filled with echoes: Toros has been screwed by Ivan; ; the tow truck driver screams that he has only been on the job two weeks (the same length as Anie’s marriage). One of the most significant is Igor, who feels like a spiritual twin to Anora.
His job is essentially a different kind of body role (based on violence rather than sex).
The character seems to be both more aware of his compatriots’ actions, and how they affect others, but he seems incapable of recognising his own past behaviour. He is capable of detaching or at least justifying his actions.
He spends the movie fixated on Anora, and seems to take pity on her. As the movie progresses, it feels like the movie is almost about to turn into a more traditional romantic comedy, with Igor as the unlikely third of a romantic triangle.
Igor’s awkward, occasionally ill-timed attempts at showing empathy toward the lead character are very funny, but they seem to be adding fuel to her disdain for him.
At the end, as he drops her off back at home, Igor gives Anora her wedding ring back.
It is the one moment in the film of a seemingly selfless act.
After a beat, Anora starts to have sex with him in the car.
At this point, one can almost see the plot schematic of how this film will resolve, with a final action that brings the romantic couple together in time for a happy ending. All troubles washed away.
But Anora the character frustrates this attempt at a generic resolution.
When Igor takes it a step further and tries to kiss her, she fights him.
After the rapidity of her relationship with Ivan, this is a level of intimacy that she cannot handle. She fights away this advance and ends the film sobbing on his chest.
On the one hand, it is a taste of emotional realism, leaning into how brief and violent the pair’s time together has been. It also - more bleakly - brings a symmetry to the story, offering a complete contrast from the euphoria of Anora’s introduction.
On the other hand, I was not sure where the film wants to leave us.
Anora is back where she started, only now with the emotional scars of a fantasy come to life. And the last time we see her, she intiates sex with Igor so quickly, my takeaway was that she was treating this gift as something that must be paid for.
I alos read Anora’s reaction as a trauma response - the last time she was this close to Igor, he was hurting her.
Maybe the messiness of this final scene is another refution of easy dramatic resolutions. The characters are in the position of a traditional romantic couple - but there is still a gulf between them.
Or maybe I am overthinking it and it just comes back to money.
Everything in this movie comes with a price tag. And it if it does not, it comes with strings - Toros trapped by his employer; Ivan’s entourage.
There are no strings with Igor. There is not even an indication that he wants anything more from Anora.
Maybe that is the final tragedy. People so pre-programmed to focus on earning to survive, that they cannot read a gift as anything other than a transaction that must be completed.
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