‘Anora’ Review

‘Anora’, the latest film from director Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Red Rocket), follows the story of Anora ‘Ani’ Mikheeva (Mikey Madison), a Russian American stripper, as she embarks on a whirlwind romance with Ivan Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), the young son of a Russian oligarch.

The first hour plays out as a fever dream, a continuous bender for our characters. The film cuts from party to party, bong hit to cocaine line to Las Vegas hotel room. These sequences are shot like a music video for some generic pop song that insists tonight is the only night that matters. This is the type of Cinderella story imagined by a young sex worker, as Ani is swept away into a life of carefree excess, with all the sex, drugs and partying that life entails.

And then Anora and Ivan get married, and the movie becomes great.

Baker defies the classic three act structure, and the movie becomes a thrilling, hilarious joyride through the streets of New York as a pair of Armenian brothers employed by Ivan’s father (Toros and Garnick played by Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan respectively) and their hired Russian muscle, Igor (Yura Borisov), seek to find Ivan and Ani and annul their marriage before Ivan’s furious parents arrive to mete out punishment to everybody involved. Where the first hour is an extended montage of different scenes in a never-ending party, the remainder of the film is its sober reflection, as the characters jump from Russian restaurants to candy shops, from night clubs to late night diners.

While all of the performances are beautiful and unique, Mikey Madison is the standout. Simply put, this movie would not work without her. I haven’t seen her anything before, so if you had told me coming out of this movie that Sean Baker just found this crass, opinionated, passionate New York stripper and decided to film her for a few weeks, I would have believed you. She plays the loud moments perfectly loud, but flourishes in the quiet ones, her back turned to the other characters, allowing herself to stop performing and be vulnerable, doubtful, scared.

Sean Baker has made a career telling small, specific, authentic stories of people often ignored by middle America. These are not caricatures, they are complicated human beings who continue to reveal new layers and contradictions up until the film’s emotional final shot. Oftentimes when Hollywood presents characters like this, they are sanitized, made palatable to the average viewer by showing that they really have a heart of gold, or that they have the same morals and goals we all have if only the right hero would come rescue them. But not here, not with Anora. We find here a real person, somebody who uses slurs and enjoys sex and partying. Somebody who will happily take a shortcut to success if it’s offered. She doesn’t need our approval, she doesn’t need to be liked. She is here, she is living her life, and that’s that.

And yet we still root for her. At one point, Anora turns to her friend in the club and mentions how she always thought of doing her honeymoon at Disney World and, without missing a beat, her friend says Ani always wanted to be Cinderella. And in that moment we see Anora for who she, and all the characters in this movie, are at their core: hustlers, strivers, dreamers. She sees an opportunity to live out her childhood dream, and takes it. What’s more relatable than that?

Anora
Rated R for strong sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, pervasive language, and drug use.
Running Time: 2 hours and 19 minutes

Director Sean Baker
Writers Sean Baker
Stars Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Aleksei Serebryakov
Rating R
Running Time 139 Minutes
Genres Romantic Comedy, Comedy, Drama, Romance