By George & Josh Bate
Seemingly emerging out of nowhere, Anora has become one of 2024’s most talked about movies. After winning the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes in May, Sean Baker’s latest film garnered rave reviews praising its commentary on sex and American society and the star-making performance of Mikey Madison. But does the movie live up to the hype and warrant the glowing reception it has received to date? The answer, much like Anora itself, comes with great nuance.
Anora follows Mikey Madison as the title character (or, as she prefers to be called, Ani), a sex worker in a Manhattan club who occasionally takes on extracurricular activities. In having a Russian grandmother, Ani speaks decent Russian and, as such, becomes the perfect choice for Ivan (played by Mark Eydelshteyn), a wiry, immature young adult who predominantly speaks Russian. After Ani and Ivan get to know one another during a series of house calls, Ivan offers Ani $15,000 to be his girlfriend for a week, which kicks off a series of unexpected events.
Perhaps best evidenced by The Florida Project, Sean Baker has crafted a repetition for emotional, extremely grounded, gritty, and less-than-glamorous tales of American life. And, with Anora, Baker continues to operate in this wheelhouse, albeit with more of a mainstream touch and less of an emotional impact.
Anora can be characterized as a film of two halves – the first of which is a fairly by-the-numbers contemporary twist on Pretty Woman, while the second is a frenetic trek through New York City with the chaos and energy of Uncut Gems. This first half unfolds with a joyous, almost idyllic tone as Mikey Madison’s Ani character seemingly hits the proverbial and literal jackpot in gaining favor with an extremely wealthy client. A stream of parties, drinking, drug consumption, and sex follows as the audience sits idly as a fly on the wall. A particularly analytic mind may identify all sorts of nuanced themes and threads in this first half, but doing so seems to ignore the fact that this is an extremely standard and unmoving half of a film. Rather than offer unique insights into the emotions of a woman in such a marginalized profession, constantly derided and depersonalized by those around her, the film’s first half simply tracks a compelling and confident young woman as she celebrates a life of newfound opulence. It isn’t a romance as Ani clearly has no intimate connection to Ivan and Ivan, for all his arrogance and aloofness, largely knows his appeal to Ani is directly tied to the size of his wallet rather than the attractiveness of his personality.
All of this first half feels like set up for some big narrative shift that finally gives the film some steam and elevates it about a mere chronicle of a bunch of young adults drinking and having sex. And, indeed, that shift does come, although in a somewhat unexpected manner. It feels inevitable that such a shift is coming and, being a kind of twisted fairy tale, it is easy to suspect the shift will take the film into some kind of heightened territory. But that isn’t the case as it is not Baker’s purpose to suddenly depart from his trademark groundness in favor of a more flashy plot about the mob or some other, more heightened element.
Instead, what occurs is a decided shift both in narrative and pacing that almost suddenly makes Anora a far more gripping film. The most apt comparison for the sort of movie it becomes is the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems, a film with a kinetic chaos and restlessness seeping through every moment. Like Uncut Gems, Anora’s second half features characters constantly talking over one another, dramatic arguments, unhinged behavior, lots of movement, and lots of noise, all of which make for more engaging viewing than the array of party scenes that encompassed the first half of the film.
It is also in this second half that Anora becomes considerably more funny. In part, this is due to the sense of chaos suddenly imbued within the film, but it is also attributable to the performance of Mikey Madison. The actress first garnered attention as the sullen Max in the FX series Better Things, before playing an unstable member of the Manson family in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and a movie-obsessed Ghostface killer in Scream (2022). Across these projects, Madison has already shown great versatility in her emerging career, but, in Anora, she takes the spotlight more firmly than ever.
Madison brings an incredible sense of humor to Anora, with sharp insults and witty comments consistently delivered throughout with a stark Brooklyn accent. Madison is a lively presence in the film to begin with and her contributions to the frenetic energy of the film’s second half do not go unnoticed. Much as is the case with Baker’s storytelling approach here, however, Madison’s portrayal of Ani largely keeps the audience at arms length from the character’s inner-workings. Ani enthusiastically welcomes Ivan (and all the money that comes with him) into her life and, in the absence of deeper moments of introspection or critical conversations with others, the audience is left to assume that things couldn’t be better for her. When things eventually do begin to go awry in the second half, Ani understandably descends into disarray and survival-mode as she tries to salvage this winning situation and stop it from slipping away from her. It isn’t until the film’s final act, in particular the very last scene, that the veil is lifted on Ani and Madison is given the opportunity to inject the character with much-needed dimensionality.
Anora concludes on a note that encourages different interpretations. On the surface, it is a very simple ending to what ultimately unfolded as a rather unpredictable deconstruction of the fairy tale mythos. Lurking beneath, however, is poignant (although potentially muddled) messaging from Baker about sex and a moral judgment regarding its use in a transactional manner. Of course, a movie following a sex worker as she does her job as a sex worker is going to have something to say about sex. Our immediate interpretation of this ending was that Baker is delivering a message about the misuse of sex as a tool or form of currency, rather than the more ‘appropriate’ use of sex as a part of intimacy, a message that feels somewhat insulting in its reduction of the intricacies of sex work. There is certainly something more to disentangle from the ending, which itself is evidence of Anora’s ability to generate conversation and contemplation. Where one lands in regards to Baker’s intention with the ending, and the film more generally, will likely vary from viewer to viewer. We believe Anora’s solemn conclusion, despite erring in its moral judgment and reduction of a complex facet of society, is ultimately one that treats Ani like an actual person, which, after over 2 hours have passed in which she has been degraded and insulted by others, is refreshingly empathic.
VERDICT: 7/10
Anora sees The Florida Project filmmaker Sean Baker operate firmly in his wheelhouse by creating another grounded tale of gritty, less-than-glamorous American life. A film of two distinct halves, Baker’s latest begins as an overly long compilation of partying, sex, and drinking, which becomes considerably more engaging upon a shift in narrative and pacing at the halfway mark. Unfolding with the frenetic energy of Uncut Gems while never taking the narrative leap to heightened or unrealistic territory, Anora manages to compel, in large part due to a star-making lead performance from Mikey Madison, who brings real humor and wit to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the film largely keeps Madison’s Ani character at arms length from the audience and, as such, offers little of substance to say until concluding on a note wide open for interpretation. While we viewed the film’s message as being a tad judgmental and reductive, it is certainly one that will foster conversation, which itself is a testament to the film’s ability to generate thought and debate. Ultimately, for us, Anora was not the groundbreaking film that the Palme d’Or win and many glowing reviews suggested, but it nonetheless excelled with its twisted deconstruction of fairy tale romance and undeniably enjoyable sense of chaos.