‘Anora’ (2024): A Provocative Look at Labor, Autonomy, and Storytelling
By Jordan DelFiugo
After winning the Palme d’Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and attracting a flurry of Oscar buzz, expectations for Sean Baker’s Anora were definitely high. The film takes viewers on a bender-like journey, with dizzying montages, a soundtrack with goosebump-inducing needle drops, including a perfect use of “All The Things She Said” by t.A.T.u., and chaotic, larger than life characters.
Still, while Anora delivers on nearly all fronts, I was left longing for something more.
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Anora follows Ani (Mikey Madison), a 23-year-old erotic dancer who marries Vanya (Mark Eidelstein), the son of a Russian oligarch, just a week after meeting him. What begins as a whirlwind romance quickly spirals into a tumultuous, high-stakes ordeal as Vanya’s powerful parents do everything they can to break up the marriage.
Baker’s ability to balance tension and comedy is on full display, particularly in the scene where Vanya’s parents send a pair of goons to essentially kidnap the newlyweds and force them to get an annulment. Vanya flees the scene, leaving Ani bewildered and alone to face two intimidating men with no idea what their intentions are. What could have been a scene straight out of a horror film instead becomes a darkly comedic spectacle. Ani’s anger and confusion contrast perfectly with the odd politeness of the goons, which creates a surreal moment of humor in the midst of chaos.
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Much of the talk surrounding Anora has centered on Baker’s exploration of sex work, a reoccuring theme throughout his past films such as Tangerine (2015) and more recently Red Rocket (2021). Baker’s portrayals of sex workers consistently stand out among the rest because he writes them as complex, dynamic characters. At times flawed, but still deeply human, when often in mainstream media, sex workers are treated as disposable.
Think back to any Law and Order episode you’ve ever seen, when the killer is hunting nameless sex workers who we only ever see being taken off-screen in body bags. Or even in comedies like Very Bad Things (1998) and Rough Night (2017) where the murder of a sex worker is played off like just another one of the hilarious hijinks the characters get into.
These all too common depictions are particularly harmful when considering the very real threat of violence sex workers face on the job daily. Sex workers have a 45 to 75% chance of experiencing sexual violence while working and according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine, female sex workers in particular have a 60% higher likelihood of being murdered.
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In Anora, Baker and Madison give us a protagonist who refuses to be sidelined, despite everyone in the movie trying to dismiss her as some “dumb hooker” or a drunken mistake Vanya made. Ani, with her pink hair tinsel, bow tattoos, and thick Brighton Beach accent, stands out as a fully realized individual who is assertive and unyielding in her interactions with others. She is a woman who fights for control even in situations where others are actively working to take it from her.
Yet, I found myself wanting a deeper exploration of Ani’s emotional world. Her character, while well-crafted, remains somewhat distant, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were only allowed a surface-level insight into her struggles. The film often tells us what Ani feels, but it doesn’t always show us why.
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Throughout Anora, I was left wondering how someone so resolute and unshakeable would allow a spoiled rich boy to manipulate her with such ease. We don’t learn enough about Ani’s background to understand what’s financially at stake, and Ani seemed so tough and practical, it just did not seem realistic that she would really believe Vanya loved her or that there was any feasible way this marriage would work out in the end. It’s only until the film's final minutes does everything click, and it begins to feel as though we truly know Ani.
After being humiliated and betrayed by her now-ex husband Vanya, Ani is met with an unexpected act of kindness from one of the goons, Igor, who reveals to Ani that he stole her wedding ring back from Vanya’s parents. In response, she immediately initiates sex with him as a means of paying him back. The way she does it is so cold and mechanical, almost like a robot, and Igor attempts to make the moment more personal by initiating eye-contact and kissing her.
This instance of intimacy makes her break down and sob in a rare moment of vulnerability that allows the audience to really see her and understand how she has come to view love as transactional. The moment is brief and abruptly cuts to the credits, but it provides much needed emotional clarity.
Ani doesn’t really believe in the fairytale that Vanya is half-heartedly trying to sell her, but she desperately wants to. That sense of misguided hope and the subsequent feeling she experiences when the illusion is shattered is a familiar, melancholic experience that Madison emulates perfectly, ultimately making Anora a must-see.
