It’s too easy to claim that writer/director Sean Baker makes inaccessible films due to the fact that so many of his narratives centre around the society underrepresented, chief among them being sex workers. As we saw in such previous works as Tangerine and Red Rocket, Baker seeks to remove such a stigma around pornography performers, prostitutes and strippers through his own profound work, and none seems more so than Anora.
Sex work is still at the core of Anora, but this feels most like a world we can see our way into, with the first half of its epic near-140 minute running time adopting an almost Pretty Woman-like mentality, albeit with a much more raw, R-rated sheen. The Anora of the title prefers to be known as Ani (Mikey Madison, an absolute star-making turn if ever there was one), a tough-talking, Brooklyn-twanged exotic dancer at a New York strip club who, night after night, grinds and charms her clientele to evident satisfaction.
Due to her ability to understand Russian, Ani is called upon to tend to Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn, a firecracker of a performance), an obscenely wealthy young Russian socialite of sorts who quickly takes a liking to her. After their initial tryst, Vanya “hires” her for the week to be his girlfriend – which essentially just means they’ll spend the 7 days heavily fornicating, abusing substances, and partying to no end – for an easy $10,000; Ani, hustler that she is, accepts for $15,000.
For a large portion of the film’s first half we take in Vanya’s 1% existence, and, much like Ani, we’re almost in awe of how little money means to him. Despite her tough exterior, there are moments of intense vulnerability that creep through Ani’s psyche – none more so than in the film’s final scene that proves the definition of heartbreaking – and Madison’s performance never feels anything other than deeply natural. It’s in one of those softer moments that Ani agrees to be Vanya’s wife when he spontaneously proposes to her during a getaway trip to Las Vegas. She initially bites back and doesn’t believe he’s serious when he asks, and she again flexes her dominance by expressing she wants a certain amount of carats for the ring, but as we see in the moments that follow their nuptials that she’s genuine in wanting to start a life with him.
Her affection for Vanya and determination in their union is then tested when news of the marriage sends waves through his family’s bloodline, and his godfather, Toros (Karren Karagulian), is sent to collect the young boy and send him back to Russia as a form of punishment. Ani isn’t going to take this lying down, and when Toros and his duo of henchmen, Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov), storm into the family home, the entire dynamic of the film shifts, leading Toros, Garnick, Igor and Ani on a chase around the city as they seek to find a fleeing Vanya.
To this point, Anora has operated with a certain energy, and even though Vanya has an air of entitled disconnection to his whole being, he’s immensely likeable, thanks in large part to the puppy dog-like charm of Eydelshteyn. Once Vanya’s livelihood is threatened, he exposes himself as the coward that he is, and though the image of him running off into the New York wild from his sprawling mansion is amusing, it speaks to the character he always was at his core, and it allows Ani to truly, once again, become Anora‘s focus after Baker indulges in their playfulness as a twosome.
For a large portion of the film’s second half there’s an intoxicating chaos that we easily surrender to, as Ani continually expresses her own dominance amongst a collective of men who have never had their masculinity so challenged before; without giving too much away, a relationship forms with one of the henchmen in a truly beautiful, organic manner that ultimately gives way to the film’s most powerful moment. On that, Madison is truly why so much of Anora works, with the actress delivering a performance bigger than her stature would indicate. She’s firing on all cylinders. At once both passionate and profane, never letting the movie envelop her as she refuses to dial any moment down. Yet, as theatrical as she proves, there’s nothing ever false about the notes she plays for our benefit. Having made an impression in her singular scene as a Manson Family member in Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood and showcasing her ability to balance camp and carnage in 2022’s Scream, there shouldn’t be any surprise as to how much she can command the screen, but Anora is transformative in every aspect, and it’s hard to not to think that her career retrospective will be divided by her status as before and after this film.
Sean Baker has made something truly special with Anora. It’s masterfully tense, warm, tragic and hilarious in equal measure. It treats its sex worker subject with natural respect, and, if nothing else, it gifts us with a performance for the absolute ages in Mikey Madison’s beautiful, regarded turn.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Anora is screening as part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, running between September 5th and 15th, 2024. For more information about the festival, head to the official site here.
Anora is screening in Australian theatres from Boxing Day, December 26th, 2024.
