Sean Baker’s career has been a driving force in indie cinema, climaxing with his magnum opus in Anora (2024).
New York City is a cold place to live with the temperatures alone, even more so if you don’t have the privilege to survive at ease. Anora blends the comedic tone of many comedies set in the city while utilizing high-energy sets with a dark undercurrent that crafts something special. It’s a remarkable movie that makes you laugh and tear up, sometimes simultaneously.
The film is familiar in many respects to Baker’s other works–it has the humanist qualities we love from the filmmaker on full display, varying human emotions from joy to sadness. Baker is the best at telling stories that need destigmatization, typically around sex work and sex workers.
In Anora, the central character, who prefers to go by Ani, is a vibrant Russian-American in the exotic dancing and sex work world. Ani lives a modest life and isn’t the type to wait for the perfect someone to “save” her from the club she works at. She’s professional, fights with others, and knows how to make her coin.
One day, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the underachieving son of a Russian oligarch, pops in and enlists Ani’s services. Ivan is everything you’d expect the ultimate rich kid to be while simultaneously having enough charisma to carry Ani away, even if money is mostly talking. The two hit it off, with Ivan promising Ani more and more money and bringing her to his seaside Brooklyn mansion before the two head on a spontaneous trip with friends to Vegas. Here’s where Ivan poses the ultimate question in marriage, and the film becomes its best.
The first act introduces us to the two and paints a picture of who they are without looking too much into their backgrounds. We glimpse Ani’s home life, living with her sister and her sister’s partner, but nothing more. From Vegas on, the film shifts into a major screwball comedy after Ivan’s parents hear news of their son marrying an escort. Ivan’s parents seek out Toros (Karren Karagulian), a priest who monitors the family’s affairs, specifically their son.
Toros’s helpers are Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov), two stock hoodlums who are asked to get Anora out of the family home and to keep an eye on Ivan. Ivan runs away—as he does with anything regarding responsibility—and Ani is forced to find him with the other three.
❝Mikey Madison delivers a career-changing performance that many will look back on for years.❞
The casting is perfect, and Mikey Madison delivers a career-changing performance that many will look back on for years. Mikey gives her character the needed edge and anger you’d expect while having a layer of vulnerability that foreshadows its heartbreaking finale.
Audiences should love the dynamic between Igor and Ani. The two don’t have a great introduction–Ani yells and berates Igor while he holds her down after the pair go in to separate Ani and Ivan at the Brooklyn mansion. Yet, you sense some sorrow and sympathy from the quiet character of Igor, who understands she won’t get the ending she wants.
The two come from the same cloth, demonstrating the class familiarity that makes relatability easier while not forcing us into a Hollywood sob story of what you’d expect with this sort of thing. Nothing is romanticized or dramatized; these people do this to get by. And just before you can experience their emotional response, the film shuts you out, just as they have done to many others.
❝ A refreshing and breathtaking film.❞
Anora is a refreshing and breathtaking film with all of the laughs, sorrow, and stunning shots you’d expect from a Sean Baker film in 2024. It’s remarkable what Baker has been able to accomplish, and Anora reminds us that whatever he’s involved with is a must-watch.
TMFF RATING:
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