Anora – but don’t call her that. Her name is Ani – is a hustler.
The titular character of Sean Baker’s “Anora” is a 23-year-old stripper who spends seven nights a week working the room at a Manhattan club – and boy, is she good at working the room.
Ani (Mikey Madison) can talk her way out of just about anything, can schmooze her way into just about any room. You’re waiting for another girl? They’re late, why don’t you go with her instead? You don’t have any cash? That’s alright, just go to the ATM, you have time! Ani is all about the attitude – just a girl with a thick Brooklyn accent, tinsel in her hair and a dream. Her job depends on her ability to posture, to make people like her, and to hold her own through it all.
Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) – the 21-year-old son of a Russian oligarch – is also all about posturing. He loves money, he loves drugs, he loves to party, and he loves to flaunt it. When Ivan (Vanya, to his friends) comes to the club one night, Ani – the only girl who speaks Russian – is sent to entertain him. They take a liking to each other. Maybe this transaction could turn into something more.
What follows is a movie that’s half “Pretty Woman” (complete with a direct reference to the negotiation scene between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere) and half grimy crime caper – think “Pine Barrens,” that episode of “The Sopranos” where Christopher and Paulie get lost in the woods searching for a Russian on the run. Baker, who wrote, directed, and edited “Anora,” has long been interested in people living on the outskirts, and sex work in particular has played an important role in his films, from “Tangerine” to “Red Rocket.” “Anora” continues that tradition and magnifies it, throwing our main character into a lavish fairytale that slowly deteriorates as she comes to grips with the cruelty that wealth and power can bring.
We first meet Ani during the opening title sequence, the camera panning across the private room section of the club, moving from girl to girl as Take That’s “Greatest Day” plays. As the beat drops, Ani comes into view, doing a hair flip that would put Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” to shame. Make no mistake, she’s the star. But as exhilarating and exciting as those opening moments are, for Ani sex work is just that – work. She has a coworker that she hates. She likes some of her clients, but some of them kind of suck. She takes regular smoke breaks with a friend, complaining about their days and dishing about the weird things people do and say. This is a job, first and foremost. We shouldn’t feel any worse for Ani because she’s a stripper than we would if she were a waitress or a customer sales’ rep. When we feel bad for Ani, it’s because she’s been lied to or manipulated, not because of the specifics of her job.
Enter Vanya, different enough from Ani’s typical clientele to throw her off her game a bit. Of course, the money is a draw (he doesn’t think twice about dropping thousands for the pleasure of Ani’s company), but Ani doesn’t meet many guys like Vanya. He’s young, he’s charming, and he lives a life of luxury the likes of which Ani has never experienced. This is a ticket out.
Ani has bravado in spades, but with Vanya she lulls herself into a sense of safety. Surprise runs across her face when he manages to startle a real live laugh out of her, sly glances cutting across the bed as she tries to figure him out. The thing is, he does feel safe. That part is important – you have to understand why Ani would be drawn to this guy in the first place. He’s cute. Maybe a little entitled, but sweet and overeager, the endearing parts of him obscuring the more childish ones at first. When Ani first goes to his house – nay, mansion – and suggests they get started having sex, he takes off up the stairs. He flies past her in his impatience, only to stop himself at the top and realize that he should perhaps wait for the girl maneuvering that long staircase in heels. When they finally make it to the bed, he doesn’t just sit down. He does a backflip.
Ani and Vanya’s whirlwind romance culminates in an impromptu marriage in Vegas, one that Vanya’s parents aren’t exactly thrilled with. Vanya’s godfather Toros (Karren Karagulian) and a couple of henchmen, including Igor (Yura Borisov) are tasked with taking the couple to get the marriage annulled. That plan goes to hell when Vanya escapes, leaving Ani to accompany the henchmen on a madcap search through the city.
This is perhaps the funniest stretch of “Anora,” a grimy, crime thriller aesthetic laid over a slapstick comedy (there’s a hilarious stretch in a courtroom that feels straight out of “What’s Up, Doc?” or “My Cousin Vinny.”) But amidst all that humor, Baker never loses sight of Ani’s journey, and more particularly, the class conflict that defines it. Throughout the film, we’ve tracked Ani notice, but ultimately ignore, the differences in her and Vanya’s stations in life– in one scene while watching Vanya play video games (a tale as old as time for a girl in her early 20s), Ani’s eyes are drawn to the maid attempting to clean up his mess from the night before without getting in his way. Up until now, she’s been able to convince herself that marriage fixed all those differences. She’s family now – it’s done. But with Vanya missing, and what seems like the whole of Russia and the Russian diaspora looking for him, the differences between them have never felt so stark.
Still, Ani refuses to go down without a fight. She may be tiny, but she is loud, and she will scream and scratch and bite before she lets anyone see her cry (Igor and the other henchman (Vache Tovmasyan) learn this the hard way). However, the movie begins to take a turn as Igor – played brilliantly by Borisov, a mysterious, sullen goon with a sensitive nature – becomes a more central figure in Ani’s journey. He and Ani’s first meeting is somehow both terrifying and funny, and definitely less than cordial (he ties her hands together with a telephone cord, she bites him on the neck).
After that bad first impression, Igor spends the majority of the rest of the film silently sizing her up, trying to get the measure of her and what she’s going through. This is portrayed visually – Igor is always looming behind her, whether he’s walking on the boardwalk or placed just over her shoulder in the backseat of a car. Ani can feel him there, a specter of everything she’s tried to avoid – whether that be reality, danger, or the terrifying notion that someone could see straight through all your blustering and bravado. Ani is a performer, and a good one at that. But that performance is also a form of protection. And when her protection is chipped away, she has to reckon with what’s left.