Review of Anora, directed by Sean Baker

For those of you who stumbled upon this website through the mysterious magical powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I started this website to keep track of and archive all of the kinds of movies, books, and television shows I’ve come across in the years.

I used to work as a professional film and television critic at an online outlet, but because I wasn’t focusing on the kinds of films I wanted to, I eventually left that job behind in order to pursue other ventures. That’s how I ended up focusing on this blog a bit more, then I temporarily entered an unemployed blip that was unexpected while on this journey, so I had even more time to write about the movies I’ve seen while I was job hunting.

So back when I was working as a critic I used to be on top of all of the new releases, which meant that I was basically only watching the latest and greatest. As you can imagine, this led to quite the burnout, especially after I was going to the film festivals and watching up to four films in a single day. I loved this life I was living, but it got to be too much after a while.

For some time I wasn’t keeping up with the new releases and physically seeing them after I left my post as a critic, but I knew about everything going on in the mean time. I just wasn’t watching them, even though some of the newest films on the scene were ones that I knew I would be interested in seeing eventually.

Anora has been a movie on my list. I wanted to see it when it first came out, but the stars didn’t align back then. Life was much more busy at that point in time, and I ended up going to South Korea for two months for a scholarship. I procrastinated very hard before cracking and renting the movie on Amazon Prime Video for a bit.

I wanted to watch it specifically for Mikey Madison, whose other movies I had enjoyed greatly. I heard the hype for her performance in this movie, and I wanted to see it for myself.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

A young sex worker gets romantically involved with and married to a Russian oligarch’s son, but not without some problems.

Our main character in this movie is Anora, but she goes by with all of her friends, coworkers, and clients as Ani. She lives in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and is of Russian decent, but she can’t really speak it. She works as a stripper in Manhattan to make her living, but when a Russian oligarch’s sson, Vanya/Ivan, comes into the venue, it changes her life.

Vanya is very irresponsible and wants to drink and party his way through the United States, despite his parents sending him there to study. He takes a liking to Ani and pays her a lot of money to have sex with him, then offers $15,000 to pretend to be his girlfriend for a week. She does just that, and the two fly to Las Vegas and Vanya asks her to marry him.

Red flags with all of this, especially as he admits he wants a green card to stay in the US and not go back to Russia. He insists that he truly loves her, and Ani falls for it and agrees to marry him. She moves into the family mansion, but they can’t keep this news quiet, as his mother finds out about it in Russia and sends his godfather Toros to clean up her son’s mess.

Toros sends two of his guys, Igor and Garnik, to the house while he calls Vanya and tells him that his parents are coming and that they need to annul the marriage. Vanya runs away and into the streets, while Ani screams, bites, cusses, and breaks everything around her to avoid getting tied up by Igor. She’s also not too happy about being called a prostitute.

They end up gagging her and taking the wedding ring off, then when Toros comes home to the fiasco that ensued while he was gone, he tells Ani the plan. They’re going to find Vanya, go tot he courthouse, get the marriage annulled, and then he’ll give her $15,000 to disappear and never come back to Vanya.

She reluctantly agrees, but we know she isn’t going down without a fight. They spend quite a bit of time making their rounds through Brighton Beach, while Toros acts like Vanya is his missing kid and shows everyone his picture. Ani also keeps insisting they’re in love, which sets her up for some heartbreak.

In the meantime, Vanya wanders into her old workplace, plastered, and starts getting it on with a coworker Ani hated. Her friend texts her that he’s there, then the crew shows up to drag him out of there. She gets into a fight on the way out, and they speed off into the night. Vanya is so drunk he won’t talk to anyone, and they wait outside the courthouse until it’s their turn.

But plot twist: because they got married in Vegas, they have to do it there. Vanya’s parents show up, Ani tries to talk to his mother in Russian, but it really doesn’t end well. Vanya still won’t talk to Ani, and when he does, he tells her their marriage won’t work and that she made his last trip to the US fun. Ani tries to refuse to go, but then his mother threatens to absolutely destroy their life, forcing her to come along.

This is the final straw for her, and while his mother calls him pathetic in Russian, Ani agrees with her. The marriage is annulled in Vegas, and Igor and Ani are sent back home. They have one last night in the house, having a somewhat deep conversation considering they barely interacted productively all movie, and then he drops her off at her house the next day.

Throughout the movie there was very obvious tension with Igor, and it can be assumed he may like her. He’s the only one to see and treat her like a human being, even if she’s vicious back. He gives her the wedding ring back and the money, and then tries to kiss her. Ani initiates having sex, but then she has a breakdown and begins crying hysterically. The movie ends there.

Overall Thoughts

This was such a fascinating movie to me. Mikey Madison was indeed electric in this role, and her Brooklyn accent was so convincing throughout the movie. Anora is a character you could study for how nuanced her narrative and emotional journey is, and the whole setting of Brighton Beach is a study in itself. I do wish she could’ve woken up and seen Vanya is a loser before the end; it was kind of obious to the viewers.

I may have planned a trip out there the next time I’m in town. I’ve been meaning to go to the Russian neighborhoods but because they’re so far, I’ve procrastinated for a hot minute.

On a slightly different note, this movie does seem very masculine and male gaze to me. I do wonder what it would have looked like if a female director was in charge of this movie, as the male gaze can be strong here. The film is also a stark departure from some of Baker’s other movies, such as Florida Project.

I enjoyed watching the movie, and I could see myself rewatching it somewhere down the road. But not anytime soon. I think we can acknowledge it for its faults, but the experience of watching it was decent.

So go see it if you’re interested and haven’t already. Part of the movie magic is seeing how exactly the story unfolds on the big screen.

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