Anora

☆☆☆☆

SPOILERS AHEAD

“I thought this was going to be another Pretty Woman love story.”

With no prior knowledge of the film, I can see why my friend and movie-going companion thought this, given these descriptions of Anora:

A young escort from Brooklyn meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairy tale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.

Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.

The dramedy follows Anora (Mikey Madison), an Uzbek-American stripper whose boss often sets her up with Russian-speaking clients. One night, she meets Vanya (Mark Eidelstein), the wealthy young son of a Russian oligarch who pays to make her his girlfriend for the week. Unexpectedly, the two fall in love and elope - but the fairytale is threatened when Vanya's parents find out.

While Anora certainly wasn’t a Pretty Woman-esque romance, I don’t think I need to issue too many content warnings to prospective movie-goers, such as one might for those under the impression that It Ends With Us is a rom-com.

However, the movie is aptly rated for its strong sexual content throughout and graphic nudity which at times really just seems like soft-core porn. In fact, the film opens with ass and tits to such an extent that my friend and I turned to each other in the cinema for a literal and figurative shake of the head: you can tell this was written and directed by a man. Perhaps that’s unfair of us and a regurgitation of liberal feminist critique (maybe in-your-face ass and tits is a realistic and gritty depiction of a strip club), but the opening scene feels cheap and maybe unnecessary. It feels like it’s shouting, HEY! BOOBS! If you weren’t paying attention to my film before, you are now.

Rest assured, Sean Baker, I’m locked in. I paid $22 to see it.

Before I get into the synopsis and my thoughts, I have to note that my friend and I were somewhat bewildered by the absence of an intimacy coordinator on this film, especially given the subject matter and abundance of explicit sexual and nude scenes. It’s almost ironic. Mikey Madison, who plays the titular character, mentioned in her Variety Actors on Actors interview with Pamela Anderson that she chose not to use an intimacy coordinator for the production.

Let’s bear in mind that this film was written and directed by Sean Baker, who reportedly cast Madison as Anora — her first leading role — with hardly any formal or laborious audition process. Madison is seemingly empowered to choose, to dictate to the gatekeeper of her career whether or not he should establish, hire, and pay for an additional staff member on his film. She speaks highly of her experience making the film and describes the set as safe and professional. But something still doesn’t sit well.

A manager at a construction site doesn’t give workers the option to don a hard hat and steel-toe boots. Value is assigned to countless other roles (known and obscure) on a film set —writers, stunt coordinators, makeup artists, hair stylists, dance choreographers, foley artists, gaffers, dialect coaches, and more. These roles ensure safety, professionalism, and the overall quality of the production. So why not an intimacy coordinator?

Synopsis

In Anora, we follow Ani, a sex worker at a club in Brooklyn. She meets Ivan, or Vanya, a spoiled 21-year-old brat whose family we are given the impression are wealthy Russian oligarchs. Vanya is somewhat infatuated with the Russian-speaking Ani and procures her services outside of the club. When Ani has to inevitably return to work and leave the fairy-tale kingdom of Vanya’s silken sheets (which, God forbid, the servants didn’t make up before she arrived), he offers her $15K to be his girlfriend for a week. And so, Cinderella gets to go to the ball. They party, they drink, they take drugs. They end up in Vegas, and Vanya laments eventually having to go back to Russia to start working in his father’s company. He shares with Ani that if he becomes a citizen by marrying an American, he won’t have to go back to Russia. Consequently, he proposes, purchases a ring, and they elope.

The news reaches the family’s American-based staff (glorified babysitters), who soon pursue Vanya and Ani in an effort to get the marriage annulled. Chaos ensues as Vanya flees, Ani is held hostage, and she eventually concedes to helping them track down the wayward teen. When they eventually do, he’s utterly inebriated with the half-naked ‘Diamond’ grinding on his lap — a rival of Ani’s from the strip club. Vanya’s wealthy parents reach America on their private jet, Ani is strong-armed into divorcing the child, and gets dumped back in Brooklyn. The clock strikes twelve, and the carriage is once more a pumpkin.

My Thoughts

My impression immediately after the film was that I loved it. The more I thought about it afterwards, the more conflicted I became. Aside from the Russian oligarchs, I found each character to be acted and portrayed brilliantly, with the film’s production being both gripping and immersive. Then Sean Baker delivered a finale that was incredibly emotional and abrupt. Perhaps that’s why the movie stuck with me. It’s thought-provoking, but does that mean it’s good? Many a mediocre man has taken up space in my mind rent-free, so I have to be careful not to conflate that with quality. There was no closure or resolution offered by the film. It’s open-ended, leaving me to sit and parse through my own jumbled thoughts and feelings. If wrestle I must, then wrestle I shall.

Let’s start with the opening of Ani at the club. I was uncomfortable and didn’t particularly enjoy the scene even though it was technically great. I have complicated feelings about sex work, so it didn’t surprise me that the scene of Ani leading old men around was, to me, gross. Ani appears cool, calm, and totally in control. She encourages the men to spend their money, she leads them by hand to private rooms, she pushes them inside with an air of dominance. I think this scene sets me on edge because I perceive Ani as vulnerable even when this is not the persona she embodies.

In a practical sense she is almost naked, dancing on men shielded by layers of clothing. Physically, I am aware that she is a small woman who could be easily overpowered. Then, like any service provider, I feel the ultimate power in this exchange lies in the hand of the consumer. We are all beholden to the hands that feed us; in this way, we’re all sex workers, selling our bodies, our minds, our time, and our labour. But, depending on who we are, what we do, and what we believe, we have platitudes about our work having meaning, and purpose to placate ourselves with. Perhaps Ani does too. But for me, I have always been disturbed by the monetisation of sex. It has to do with consent and perhaps my romanticisation of sex, but also because I can’t divorce men wanting, seeking, and getting access to women’s bodies from harm. I would experience such cognitive dissonance in offering up my body under the guise of empowerment when I view the consumer as a perpetrator of objectification. This is not to shame or antagonise anyone, just as my movie-going companion and vegan friend offers no commentary as I munch on my cheesy-flavoured popcorn. She’s happy that I am enjoying my snack but could never participate and support an industry she believes is complicit in the rape and murder of animals.

I digress, but I feel it is important for you to know my position (and perhaps bias) when it comes to my interpretation and thoughts on this film.

Ani, for all intents and purposes, seems content enough in her job. She is affable and pleasant, a natural salesperson who appears to make every client feel special and well taken care of. She is dazzling! Much like her name which a character, Igor, discovers means light.

When Vanya frequents the club, Ani’s boss pairs the two on account of her ability to speak Russian. As with all her previous clients we’ve seen, Ani gets Vanya into a private room whereupon he receives a lap dance. She takes off her thong to grind on him naked, which she asserts is not technically allowed. But she likes him. Initially, I thought this was another smooth tactic to lubricate Vanya’s spending, because Ani does not know him. What’s there to like? With hindsight, perhaps not. Maybe Ani did like him. Maybe Ani thought she liked him.

The next portion of the film consisted of monotonous sex scenes. I wondered why this movie had to include such explicit nudity and sex. I wouldn’t say the start dragged for me, as it did for my friend, but it was definitely repetitive. There were montages of Ani dancing for, stripping for, partying with, and having sex with Vanya, and I asked myself if that was necessary to the film. How I think it perhaps did aid the storytelling was in demonstrating Ani’s perception and experience of these interactions. She did not seem repulsed, scared, or bored with any of her clients. She seemed genuinely friendly and open.

The snippets we get of Ani in her everyday life show her bickering with a housemate, rugged up in the cold, tired, somewhat irritable, and smoking. So either she loved her job, or this was service with a smile. Perhaps the multiple sex scenes we had to endure as an audience were intended to show the depths of Ani’s act. She gave a flawless performance in the face of cheating husbands, absent fathers, and in Vanya’s case, a man-child. The first time they have sex at his house, he literally does a somersault on his bed to get into position. Later, as he becomes enraptured with a first-person shooter video game, she reminds him that he paid for an hour and has so far only used 15-minutes to rail a gorgeous girl.

Vanya sucks. He is the product of his parents, but I disliked him from the moment he came on screen. I thought Ani—cool, calm, in-control Ani—was on the same page as me. Yes, she was enamoured by his big beautiful mansion, but she still demanded money and negotiated her week-long girlfriend rates. So I was a bit confused when she agreed to marry Vanya, even more so when, in the face of annulment or divorce, she was adamant that they were in love. Perhaps Ani knew she didn’t love Vanya– just the wealth, lifestyle, and security a marriage to him promised. I’d love a mansion and hordes of disposable income, but I wouldn’t marry a Vanya to get it, which makes me question why Ani agreed so impulsively. Was she desperate to escape her life? Is that why Diamond was “jealous” of Ani when she “caught [her] whale”. Are all of the women at the strip club holding out for their “happiness”: a prince or a fairy godmother who will take them from rags to riches?

Without such luck or magic, Ani seems to cling and grasp for an external power. She wields it over her clients through sex and affection. She exerted power over the men who came to annul her marriage by fighting like hell. She was verbally abusive, bit a chunk out of Igor’s neck and broke Garnik’s nose. She had to be tied up with a phone cord and gagged with an expensive scarf before Toros could finally persuade her that he will pay her the fee of a green card if she would just cooperate. Ani agrees to assist in the efforts to find Vanya so that she could talk to him about all of this. I enjoyed the montage of them searching for him; this was quite comical.

From here, the tone shifts again, and we see how none of these tools are wielded to achieve her desired outcome. Sweet words don’t do much to sober up Vanya or persuade him to fight for her. Insults don’t work either. Neither does the threat of getting a lawyer and suing for Vanya’s assets. The Russian oligarchs hold the power here.

Money.

Status.

Real power.

They are the ticking clock.

Igor, one of the Russian henchmen, is impressed by Ani’s external display of power. Her physical, verbal, and emotional fight against this wrongdoing is admirable to him. He also recognises that it is unfair. Igor apologises for his part in the dispute and begins to offer small tokens of affection: a scarf to shield her from the cold, a shot of vodka when the Russian heiress calls her a hooker. Gallantly, he stands up to the oligarchs to suggest that Vanya may owe Ani an apology—a notion promptly dismissed by his mother, who, despite her vehement disappointment in her son, refuses to let anyone else voice such a sentiment. When he drives Ani back to her house, his final act of kindness is to offer her the expensive engagement ring which they had confiscated from her. In the car, Ani climbs on top of Igor and initiates sex.

This was devastating.

Perhaps Ani does not want to be indebted to anyone, and so this sexual favour would balance the scales.

Perhaps it was her way of reclaiming power and control after having been stripped so thoroughly of it. She fought physically for agency and had tried to wield various forms of power – threatening to involve lawyers and the police – to dictate the Russians’ behaviour.

In the face of a burgeoning connection with Igor – one that seemed to stem from admiration and respect of her character, rather than her body – perhaps Ani sought to connect in a way that was familiar to her, one where she felt in control.

I wished Igor had chosen not to participate, chosen to stop her. But he didn’t.

Igor tries to kiss Ani, who resists, and for a moment they struggle. Then she breaks down, collapsing in his arms, sobbing.

And that’s where the movie ends.

Is it because at the end of it all, Igor’s just as willing to take what the other men are? Going so far as to pressure her to kiss, stripping her once again of her agency?

Is it because there is an intimacy in looking at her, wanting to face her, and kiss her, when her clients are so often satisfied with just her body, facing away from them?

Is it because the only other man we saw her kiss was Vanya? While he bankrolled their affair, she was in control, teaching and directing their physical intimacy. Here Igor initiates the kiss. He leads. He has a certain power.

Whatever the answer may be, I think this is probably a realer ending than Pretty Woman. Vivian wanted a fairy-tale too:

“I would pretend I was a princess trapped in a tower by a wicked queen, and then suddenly this knight... on a white horse with these colors flying would come charging up and draw his sword, and I would wave, and he would climb up the tower and rescue me.”

And in the end, Vivian got to live happily ever after. But I feel more convinced by Ani’s tragic ending – the one where sex, power, love, and money have been detrimentally interwoven and tangled in her life.

The taglines on some of these movie posters say, “Love is a hustle” or “A Made in America Love Story.” Doesn’t this say it all? Ani couldn’t hustle for love – real love. And as much as we’re sold the American dream, hard work doesn’t result in the fairy-tale ending.

Perhaps the American dream, or the fairy-tale itself, is a lie. Maybe Igor doesn’t love her. Or perhaps he does, but Ani can’t recognise it or reciprocate authentically because she is hurting from the whirlwind and disillusionment of Vanya. Or maybe it’s because her occupation demands that love, sex, and affection remain conditional — commodified and transactional, always tethered to a price.

In her club, Ani is a prize, a luxury to be bought. But perhaps here in the car with Igor, she realises that she never had the power to dictate her worth and value to men, even when they paid her price.

A jelly tale from Sean Baker.

Sure.

A fuckboi fairytale from Sean Baker.

Sure.

A tragedy from Sean Baker.

Sure.

A comedy from Sean Baker.

Sure.

A drama from Sean Baker.

Sure.

A Cinderella story from Sean Baker.

Sure. For a time.

A love story from Sean Baker.

I’m not so sure.

I do appreciate that Sean Baker chose not to give us answers. We don’t learn too much about the characters or their backstories, and the narrative itself lacks a clear voice or definitive message. While some may find this storytelling boring or hollow, for me, it forced my involvement. Watching the film became a dynamic relational exchange where my own biography and beliefs interacted with what was presented on screen. I could easily rewatch Anora at a different time in my life and come away with entirely new thoughts and feelings. To me, this is powerful filmmaking, because that’s what life is like — open-ended, interpretive, and ever-changing.