Anora (2024)
Directed by: Sean Baker
Premise: A sex worker (Mikey Madison) meets the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn) and after a brief romance they get married in Las Vegas. His family demands an annulment.
What Works: Sean Baker’s films are frequently concerned with American life at the margins; his movies are contrary to much of Hollywood’s output which is usually aspirational portraits of middle class wealth and comfort. Anora takes a Cinderella story template and casts it with a sex worker and the son of a foreign oligarch. The movie punches a hole in that fairytale but does so with a lot of humor and pathos. Part of the reason the film works so well is that the opening plays as a fantasy. Anora meets Ivan and the two of them share a likable romantic chemistry. They have a whirlwind romance and their pairing appears complementary. He’s a bit sheltered and naïve while it is implied that she is more worldly wise. But the allure of love and economic security makes Anora blind to the realities of the situation. The middle of the picture is about that reality catching up with her. Anora gradually turns from an idealistic romance to a heartbreaking drama and in doing so it challenges the popular fantasy of an oligarchical class smiling on the downtrodden in the name of love as seen in Pretty Woman and Fifty Shades of Grey. This theme is terrifically managed by the filmmakers and realized by the performances. Mikey Madison is cast as Anora and Madison is fierce but also vulnerable. She fights so hard to salvage an obviously unsavable relationship for reasons that gradually become clear over the course of the story. Although it’s a loud performance there is also a great deal of subtly in Madison’s portrayal of Anora with little moments revealing her inner life. The picture is very funny (except when it isn’t) and like its central character there is a feral and unruly quality to the story which is highlighted by the filmmaking. Anora strikes a balance between polish and rawness that suits the story and the characters.
What Doesn’t: Anora makes a hard tonal turn in the ending. The movie is quite funny throughout but the final minutes make us question our understanding of what we’ve observed and our own emotional reactions to it. Careful viewers will note the way this turn is set up by the filmmaking choices and through the performance but the ending is likely to catch many viewers off guard. Anora’s finale is not a flaw—it’s one of the picture’s best assets—but it does subvert the pleasures viewers might expect. The marketing materials for Anora describe it as a Cinderella story and the first part of Anora plays a bit like Pretty Woman but the ending has more in common with Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience and Lizzie Borden’s Working Girls.
Bottom Line: Anora is an emotional wallop that is both intensely funny and deeply dramatic. It makes an interesting companion piece to Sean Baker’s previous films The Florida Project and Red Rocket but it’s also a sobering counterpoint to Cinderella-style fantasies.
Episode: #1023 (November 17, 2024)