‘ANORA’ A Blistering Anti-Romance That Only Sean Baker Could Make

An up-and-coming twenty-something adult film star, a scorned Black transgender hooker, a down-on-her-luck Florida mom turning tricks, a well-endowed, washed-up male porn star, a Brooklyn stripper and sex worker—these are the protagonists of Sean Baker’s filmography, brought vividly to life in his uncompromising, deeply empathetic movies. To say he has a type is to state the obvious: the man likes to make movies about people whose work, in one form or another, is sex. And yet his subjects are all so different, so grounded in harsh realities, so uniquely broken, that to lump them together under their professions is perhaps to miss his distinctly humanist approach to storytelling. Through the lens of sex work, Baker crafts stories that reflect modern-day America in all its myriad challenges, where the boot of capitalism presses heavily upon underrepresented, working-class people like Jane (Starlet), Sin-Dee (Tangerine), Halley (The Florida Project), Mikey (Red Rocket), and Anora (Anora), each of whom struggles to find their American Dream in tragic, funny, jaded, and heartbreaking ways.

Anora follows its titular character, played with sprightly conviction and spitfire intensity by Mikey Madison, through a sex-fueled come-up romance. “Ani”, an exotic dancer at the popular HQ gentlemen’s club, finds herself wrapped up in a fast-moving fling with Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. She’s the only dancer at HQ able to speak Russian and the two converse in broken Russian and broken English between lap dances and bottle service. At first, Vanya dazzles Ani with displays of largesse; showering her with benjamins, treating her to unruly late-night parties, and offering her $15,000 for “a week of exclusivity.”

Ani’s visits to Vanya’s Coney Island mansion invite daydreams of a life not spent hustling for cash money. In Vanya’s material comforts, Ani sees possibility. The fact that none of this truly belongs to the perpetually stoned 21-year old trustafarian seems lost on Ani, who is perhaps too happy to be caught up in the mirage of his “success.” Her affection for the freewheeling, fast-spending trust-fund comrade grows with each encounter, though their romantic entanglement remains rooted in capital. Vanya pays Ani for her company, her body, her time, and through his financial investment, a distorted version of puppy love begins to bloom.

In the midst of their week of paid exclusivity, Vanya, Ani, and friends take a spur of the moment trip to Las Vegas. Hard partying and careless gambling turns to coke-fueled professions of love. Before you can say, “Only fools rush in,” the new couple finds themselves in a little white chapel saying “I do” at their shotgun wedding. Their substance- and money-fueled whirlwind romance may be roughshod, even make-believe but the legality of their marriage is not. Rumors of their marriage quickly reach Vanya’s wealthy parents, who send a pack of Armenian goons – Toros (Karren Karagulian), Vanya’s godfather and an Orthodox priest, along with bumbling henchmen Igor (Yura Borisov) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan)- after the newlyweds, with designs to drag them back to the courthouse and immediately annul their nuptials.

Baker writes and directs with such volume and intensity that it feels like there’s less of a proper script and more of a focus on improvisational character motivations, often driven by who can be the loudest in the room. While the experience can be jarring, there’s a grounded authenticity to this style that’s startling in its abrasiveness—the dramatic equivalent of Larry David saying whatever comes to mind, without regard for consequences. Ani is loud, brash, and determined, but her rose-colored view of her and Vanya’s arrangement is rooted in a Disneyified storybook view of romance. Which in itself is an extension of her 23-year old immaturity.

Mikey is a force of nature as Anora— all raw nerve, snapping fingers, and Jersey Shore sass, with a raw romantic inclination. Ani has dreamed up her own fairytale ending, complete with a foreign knight in Gucci armor, armed with a legion of dollar bills and an escape hatch from the hustler culture of da club. While she always has her mind on her money and her money on her mind, her feelings do get involved, much to her detriment. Mikey channels the character’s complexity: brash Gen-Z energy, uncaged sexuality, and seething rage, that is also driven by an unvarnished emotional honesty, all of which combine to make Ani a wholly realized individual. Anora is a tragic figure, a hustler, a bad bitch, and a hopeless romantic, all squeezed into a mini dress and winged-tip makeup.

Baker has never sugarcoated harsh realities, and though he allows the couple their share of “romantic” moments, there’s always a sense of comeuppance looming overhead like a narrative guillotine. While Vanya has wealthy parents to fall back on, Ani has no safety net. No nest egg beyond the immediacy of Vanya’s loose money clip and opulent gifts. Baker juxtaposes these characters and their backgrounds to make a statement about the security blanket that is wealth, something obviously not afforded people like Ani, who are forced to twerk for a living. When the chips are down, Vanya can slink back to the hole his parent have built for them. Ani will have to return to a life of sweating for every dollar. He allows his characters to dabble in escapism—whether that be dreams of a trip to Disneyland or the promise of making it big with as little effort as possible—but he always brings them crashing back down to earth. Taking this ascent and descent with Ani is both effervescent and bruising, making for a character study that is at times deeply funny, a welcome side effect of Mikey’s magnetic performance, but remains somewhat soul-crushing.

Anora feels deeply connected to Baker’s filmography, capturing themes of blue-collar struggle through sex work, the daily indignities faced by the working class, and the façade of hope peeling back to reveal a hollow core. Baker’s films remain hopeful in much the same way that the human experience itself is hopeful: though filled with inevitable tragedy, each new day brings a chance to reshape oneself. By embracing this hopeful hopelessness, Anora proves itself to be in active conversation with his previous work. Though not as deeply funny as Red Rocket, as emotionally devastating as The Florida Project, as touching as Starlet, or as brash as Tangerine, Anora manages to embody the best of those films, delivering an anti-romance in complete command of its tone and style that is 100% Sean Baker.

CONCLUSION: Mikey Madison rules the screen as a Brooklyn stripper who falls for the wealthy son of a Russian oligarch and the fallout their entanglement entails in the truly alive ‘Anora’. As their story unfolds, writer-director Sean Baker puts the romantic-comedy through a fun house mirror, where the promises of love and wealth distort into vapor and illusions, unraveling as the well-drawn characters confront the tricks they’ve played on themselves.