Anora (2024) - Sean Baker’s magnum opus (so far)

Beginning with Tangerine, I was hooked. Sean Baker quickly became for me the 21st Century’s U.S. equivalent of Robert Bresson. With a much gentler wit and very often, laugh out loud funny (however ruefully) among moments of bitterness, reproach, frustration, and anger.

Then came the The Florida Project which skillfully used the most everyman of great actors, Willem Dafoe, to great effect as the manager of an apartment complex populated by families and individuals on the margin. Red Rocket shifted the locale to the Texas Gulf Coast and hit even closer to home for me because I know that area really well and Baker captured something of the desperation and endless hope you encounter in small town East Texas. Everyone wants to get out, but they don’t mind staying.

Now, Baker has taken a major leap onto a much broader canvas. Anora is a masterful examination of what happens when something too good to be true comes into a life where the recipient isn’t a sap. Ani - don’t call her Anora - is a force of nature; a sex worker who’s been plucked by her manager to entertain some Russian kid who doesn’t speak much English - is far too grounded to completely fall for what happens as a result of this meeting, but not quite ready to be talked or bought out of it. Played by Mikey Madison - and if there is justice in this world, she’ll get a nod from the Academy for her work here, Ani is raw, combative, funny, and a fighter on the canvas mat of class and social divides.

Anora has been likened to what Pretty Woman would actually be stripped of its Hollywood tropes and trappings. Here, there’s no Hollywood ending, Ani and her idiot child of a boyfriend and later husband Ivan, are as far from Gere and Roberts as you’re likely to get. And I like them both better. Sure, Ivan’s a selfish little prick who doesn’t know the first thing about being a decent human being; but he is, in all his obnoxiousness, kind of sweet and goofy. The relationship with Ani is mostly transactional, until it’s not. They genuinely do like each other, and even after they get married in Las Vegas, it’s mostly to ensure that Ivan can stay in the States and not have to return to Russia. 

Of course, it’s doomed! But along the way, there’s that ruefulness that Baker can evoke so well. Deep down inside, you know that Ani knows this isn’t going to last, but goddamn it, she’s going to try to make it last for as long as she can. When Ivan’s two Armenian handlers show up, following on word that he’s married a prostitute, the mayhem really kicks into high gear. It’s not a stretch when you see it to see just how tough she is when she goes up against these guys. They work with Toros, who’s been entrusted by Ivan’s father to keep tabs on him. Toros is a Russian Orthodox priest and when he gets word that the rumors are true, he exits a christening to head to Ivan’s (well, actually, his father’s) compound. The exchange between Garnick (who, it happens, is also Toros’s brother) is as untethered as the slapstick madness that resulted after Ivan took off running and left Ani to deal with the Armenians. 

In what is one of the funniest sequences of violence in any film, Ani clocks Igor like a pro and breaks Garnick’s nose. Baker does something remarkable with everyone concerned; you don’t lose your sympathy for anyone. Ivan’s a lost cause and the least deserving, but Ani, Garnick, and Igor? They didn’t ask for this. When Toros shows up, he proves a skillful negotiator and gets Ani to accept that this is a sham, if technically legal, marriage and offers Ani a ten thousand dollar buy-out once they track down Ivan.

There is tremendous balance in how Baker fleshes out the mundane aspects of Ani’s life prior to and now somewhat on the periphery of the film’s action, once we launch into this crazy second act. As with Baker’s other portraits of people in the sex industry, the portrayal is sympathetic and captures the day to day reality that stripping and escorting are jobs. There’s also the tacit understanding that these jobs take a toll but/and have workplace friendships, rivalries, and conflicts that wouldn’t be out of place in an office gig, only the discussions revolve more around a client’s proclivities than how soon you can get a report delivered, and how interpersonal conflicts aren’t taken to HR, you basically lay into the bitch if she fucks with you. 

We catch glimpses of Ani’s Homelife with her sister, the drain the later hours take, but through it all, there is no miserablist handwringing or melodrama. What there is, in abundance, is wit, and a wry look at the more even playing field between Ani and Igor and Garnick. Even Toros, who may be farther up the pecking order comes across more as a guy who has to work really hard for any modicum of respect (despite being a priest). 

Hanging over the proceedings are Ivan’s parents. His dad is obviously a well-known Russian oligarch. Maybe not a mafia chief, but no one to mess with. His mother, when we eventually meet her might be the more fearsome of the two. In the meantime, tracking Ivan down is a road trip of bars and clubs that take us back to Headquarters/HQ, the strip club where Ani worked and where she met Ivan. By the time they arrive, he’s ensconced with Ani’s trash talking rival Diamond, who’s very much loving the idea she’s banging Ani’s husband. By the time they exit the club, all the girls on duty have kept off their clients to see the fight that’s broken out between Ani and Diamond (wasn’t really much of one; to Baker’s credit, he knows this stuff is over before it’s begun), and we end the act with Ani, Ivan (thoroughly incapacitated/hammered), Igor, Garlick, and Toros en route to New York City Hall to annul the marriage. 

If it sounds like the film is non-stop, in one sense it very much is. There is a kinetic fury to the parting, the clubbing, and even down to Ivan’s bunny-rabbit screwing, so much that Ani has to slow him down and show him how to approach things more sensually, sensitively. The pace picks up during the night as our intrepid team hunts their quarry, and a stop at a diner provides a respite amply deserved. Over the course of all this, we learn more of Garnick and Toros’s relationship; Toros is the older and routinely browbeats Garnick who is very much concussed, to the point of vomiting on himself after asking to be dropped off at an ER. Nothing doing, he’s going to suffer like everyone else and deal with the fall-out like everyone else.

Igor is repeated berated by Ani. He’d been able to subduer her by tying her up with a telephone cord and holding her in check for what seemed like hours before Toros showed up. In the aftermath, she insulted him with the crudest of homophobic names and called him a pervert. Igor, for his part, isn’t smitten, but he does take care to ensure she’s okay and comfortable, all of which is shut down when he tries to talk to Ani In the backseat and she goes off on him again. There is very much a point to this dynamic that becomes clear later and sets up the emotional charge of the final scene.

Once they get to the courthouse, they rest in the car until daylight, and meet the lawyer handling the case. It should be open and shut except for one snag; they got married in Nevada and the annulment has to take place there. The courtroom sequence is as expertly executed as anything else in the film with a balance between near-slapstick, vulgar with and Ani getting to plead her (and Ivan’s) case to the judge. We can figure that this isn’t her first day in court, but this doesn’t change the fact that they’re getting on a plane back to Las Vegas and meeting the parents before they do; that’s right, the whole lot is going to fly to Vegas together like one not quite a family and not particularly happy not quite a family.

If everyone hasn’t made it plain what a little shit Ivan is, his parents do. Ani attempts to approach his mother in Russian and this so doesn’t work. Ani’s nothing but a whore in the woman’s eyes and gets no credit for the language skills; Ivan’s mom tells her that her Russian is terrible. As they get on the plane, Ani stays defiantly on the tarmac at the foot of the stairs. Ivan, by now, is sober (or what passes for it), and regards her with disdain, telling her that she just doesn’t get it; it’s over. Then his mother comes down the stairs and Ani says she’s going to sue for half of everything; they signed no pre-nup and she’s not going to be bought for a measly ten thousand. In almost warm tones, Ivan’s mom tells Ani that everything she owns will be stripped from her and the people she loves will die. Ani gets on the plane.

On the plane, more and more comes out about Ivan’s complacency and his disregard for everyone, including Ani. She tears into the whole family and takes one more dig at mom, much to Ivan’s dad amusement. It’s probable that no one has ever spoken to her that way, not even him. The annulment goes smoothly and Ani will return to New York with Igor to get the cash and go back to her life..They’ll stay the night at the compound and pick up the money in the morning. She balks at being in the same house with him and is rude beyond comprehension to him after they vape a bit. She tells him he’s a pervert (again) and that he’s probably a rapist. When asked why, she says he has “rapey eyes.” Igor says she’ wrong and he knows and we know that she has no idea of who he is or if she does, she’s doing her best to push him away. He might be muscle for a Russian oligarch, but he’s a genuinely nice guy. Compared to Ivan, he’s a goddamn prince.

I don’t want to spoil what is the most affecting scene in the film. I will say that it’s Ani’s catharsis. Her frustration, her failure, her lack - of money, of love, of fulfillment, and her need - like all of ours - to be accepted, if not loved, explodes in an emotionally charged moment that sounds like it comes out of nowhere, but when you see Madison’s performance, it is very much of a piece, and makes all the sense in the world.

While it’s easy to single out Mikey Madison’s singular performance - she is, after all, playing the title character - the movie is replete with layered, thoughtful and occasionally unhinged performance (of necessity!) Mark Edelshteyn captures Ivan’s immaturity, cluelessness, and selfishness that is - at least, initially - endearing and as the film progresses, stridently annoying and limit-testing. Edelshteyn is given plenty to play with but his scenes with Madison are electric. We see him through her eyes, and he doesn’t disappoint. Again, at least, initially. Even in the later scenes, each actor gives the other plenty to work with. If acting is reacting, the Mikey and Mark show is textbook.

After smaller turns in Baker’s other films, Karren Karagulian as Toros is given an opportunity to chew scenery and find shades of the character’s humanity that would otherwise be lost in caricature.As Toros, Karagulian has to exude some degree of authority, but it’s clear that his authority only goes so far. He’s as terrified of his bosses as Garnick and Igor. Still, we see a capable fixer who thinks on his feet and is capable of improvising; the only person who doesn’t really care is Ani and she makes it plain how little of his shit she’s going to take and Karagulian imbues Toros with enough dimension to show he does have some respect for her chutzpah. 

And Garnick! Lordy, the recipient of most of the indignities in the film, he’s somehow able to stave off collapse and try to stay on mission. Bullied by both older brother Toros and Ani, broken-nosed and concussed, you forget he’s an enforcer. Vache Tovmasyan gets the lion’s share of comedy and even tragedy. Well, maybe not tragedy, but given what happens to Garnick oner the course of the film, his ass gets handed to him on a minute by minute basis.

What of Garnck’s partner? In a piece with as many actors getting to do pretty showy work, Yura Borisov has his work cut out for him. His lines are few and he has to act primarily through looks alone. The first thing that stuck out is that Borisov doesn’t seem to be acting for the camera, at all. Igor is recessed, but pivotal in that quiet way often given to “loose cannons”; the ones who say nothing but deliver devastating blows, that sort of thing. That’s not the case here. You get that Igor could, but he’s not going to unless it’s necessary. A scene later in the movie shows his capacity for violence, but it’s a targeted and restrained example. Where Ani is concerned, he watches her and is, it seems, mostly amused and admiring. You get that they’re not so different. 

Baker doesn’t spend any time on back story or trying to tell why anyone in his film is the way he or she is. It’s all in the moment. These people just met. They know nothing about each other, but there’s a knowingness in Igor’s watching that tells you plenty about his history. After taking verbal lashings from Ani throughout Anora, Igor never returns with the same; he’s genuinely curious about why she says the things she says and acts the way she does toward him. Is he hurt by it? If he is, he doesn’t show it, but her. attacks are nasty enough, you wonder why he endures them. That’s one of the ways we find out there’s more to this guy than anyone thinks. I also suspect that Ani knows it, too, and while a large part of me wants to discuss how the final scene supports this notion, I’ll hold off.

The studied depth of the characters extends to Ani’s colleagues at HQ, including both Luna Sofía Miranda who plays Ani’s best friend Lulu and Lindsey Normington who plays her nemesis Diamond. Both are bring real life experience to their roles and in keeping with Sean Baker’s alchemy of having non-actors deliver remarkable performances, they both do so. We’ve all worked with a Diamond, someone with the perennial chip on the shoulder and Lulu is the supportive enthusiast who’s there with you when your star is rising and after it falls. 

The Zakharovs are both the kind of twisted rich parents some of us can be grateful aren’t ours. Darya Ekamasova as mother Galina is exactly the type of powerful, hardened woman no one wants to offend, but I get the feeling that she, too, holds a grudging acceptance of meeting her match in Ani. Ekamasova’s performance doesn’t reveal too much, but she treats Ani less disrespectfully after she’s threatened to destroy her life, and she doesn’t say much after Ani lays into her later. By contrast, Alexsey Serebryakov as pater noster Nikolai is both slow-burn pissed at his son and as mentioned earlier, bemused by his son’s Las Vegas Wife. He has that look of resigned world-weariness that comes with managing what is likely a massive constellation of enterprises both legal and not, and then having to deal with his putz of a son.

Anora is huge leap in other directions for Baker, as well. It’s his biggest budgeted film, working on real film stock; the action spans the country from New York to Las Vegas, but it remains true to his examination of lives on the margins and is the most pointed critique of class division yet. Here we get to see up close the lack of concern for consequence with which the monied classes treat those beneath them. In thet regard, Ani has every right to ream the Zakharovs and their hirelings. 

It’s also a freaking gorgeous movie. All of Baker’s works have a distinct visual richness to them, but here, Drew Daniels gets to stretch the vocabulary with dynamic compositions and camera movement that evokes the work Michale Ballhaus did for Scorsese. It’s kinetic but not dizzying and when the camera movement slows down, it opens the film up in studied set-ups that allow the space around the characters to come alive and give a sense of presence with them in the more quiet and intimate moments, the comfortable, the uncomfortable and the crazy).

Baker has simply done it again. He’s presented a humanist and humane piece of cinema thet I really feel is one of the finest of contemporary U.S filmmaking. It’s also a significant enough leap stylistically that as much as I really want to see him tackle more and larger works, I hope he’s able to preserve the intimacy and humanity of his work to date.