Sean Baker is an intriguing filmmaker who doesn’t repeat himself, although most of his films follow characters who are marginalised. His breakthrough film was 2015’s Tangerine, a low budget independent drama about a transgender prostitute looking for her pimp – it was entirely shot on a mobile phone. He followed that film in 2017 with The Florida Project, which featured Willem Dafoe as the manager of a rundown hotel in Orlando, next to Disney World. In 2021 he gave us the raunchy sex comedy Red Rocket about a washed-up porn star who returns home to his small town in Texas. His latest film is Anora, an edgy comedy and gritty erotic drama. This is, arguably, his best film yet and is earning plenty of kudos.
The titular character is Anora (Mikey Madison) who goes by Ani. She works as an exotic dancer in The Headquarters, an upmarket New York strip club. Because she can speak Russian, she’s sent to entertain Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the irresponsible but rich 21-year-old son of powerful Russian oligarchs. He’s in America to study but he loves to party extravagantly. He’s intrigued by Ani, who gives him a lap dance. Then Ivan invites her to spend some time with him in his parent’s lavish house in Brooklyn. Then he offers her $10,000 to spend a week with him as his pretend girlfriend, which she deftly negotiates up to $15,000. She accepts and embarks on a week-long odyssey of sex and partying. The pair click and embark on a whirlwind romance.
Then, on a whim, Ivan flies her to Las Vegas. While there, the pair get married in a wedding chapel. All seems going well… until Ivan’s family back home in Russia learn of the nuptials. They’re less than pleased. They send Toros (Karren Karagulian), their hot-headed American based fixer (and Ivan’s godfather) to force Ivan to annul the marriage. When two of his goons – Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov) – arrive at the house, Ivan flees; leaving Ani to fend for herself.
What follows is both a tense standoff and a bleakly funny chase scenario as Ani reluctantly agrees to help Toros and his hapless goons find Ivan. The home invasion scene is quite tense as Ani faces down Toros and his henchmen, and Baker deftly ramps up the claustrophobic tension. Some of the dialogue here seems improvised, which adds to the emotion of the scene. Baker has stated in interviews that the story was inspired in part by a friend’s experience, a newly-wed who was kidnapped.
Anora runs for over two hours but, for the most part justifies, the length as the script is peppered with dark humour, action and engaging characters. However, the middle section of the film meanders a bit as they hit the mean streets of Brooklyn and search for the feckless Ivan through various haunts. Visually the film looks great thanks to the work of Baker’s regular cinematographer Drew Daniels, who uses handheld cameras to good effect. An opening sequence takes us deep inside the strip club and is quite frank in its depiction of this world. His lensing of the neon-lit Vegas is quite stunning. As with his previous films Baker treats sex and sex workers with compassion and understanding.
Baker, who also edited the film, keeps things moving with a restless energy and the action is accompanied by a diverse soundtrack that includes Blondie and Take That.
Karragulian is both frightening and funny as the hot headed Toros. Borisov (Compartment No 6) is very good as Igor, who develops a soft spot for Anora and her situation. He brings empathy and a touch of compassion to his role. Tovmasyan provides plenty of laughs with his performance as the hapless heavy thug Garnick. In his first English-language film Eydelshteyn (Land of Sasha) is perfectly cast as the irresponsible Ivan. He has a lot of fun in the role, bringing a mix of innocence and restless energy to it. However, Anora is grounded by the tremendous star-making performance from Madison (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)in the title role. The character is intelligent, feisty, tough and formidable as she stands up to the intimidating Russian goons, but Madison also reveals her vulnerability.
However, the dialogue is liberally littered with profanities, and those who are offended by the “f” word may want to think carefully before checking out Anora. For those who like something fresh and off-beat though, Anora is well worth checking out and is a highlight of the Christmas/Boxing Day releases.
Greg King
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Greg King has had a life long love of films. He has been reviewing popular films for over 15 years. Since 1994, he has been the film reviewer for BEAT magazine. His reviews have also appeared in the Herald Sun newspaper, S-Press, Stage Whispers, and a number of other magazines, newspapers and web sites. Greg contributes to The Blurb on film