'Anora' is a hilarious and heartbreaking story of a dream deferred

touche

Anora is about a young woman named Anora “Ani” (Mikey Madison) who works at as a stripper at an upclass club in Manhattan (herself residing in Brooklyn) who meets a spoiled rich kid of a Russian oligarch named Ivan “Vanya”(Mark Eydelshteyn).

Vanya decides to hire Ani for her services outside the club and later pays her $15,000 to stay with him for a week to pose as his girlfriend. Vanya eventually poses the idea of getting married and Ani agrees — getting married quickly and impulsively in Vegas.

Anora is a movie about those who have the privilege of pursuing their dreams and those who don’t. A story of two (essentially) kids — one immature and the other naive. Two "adults" in name only. Neither possessing anything real in their lives, be it money or autonomy Yet even then, as you watch the protagonist ignore all the obvious red flags; you cannot help but feel so bad for her: sure, she's a foul-mouthed, rude, and quick-tempered sex worker, but that doesn't at all make her deserving of the treatment she faces in Anora.

There are several ways to hurt a person that don't involve ever having to lay a finger on them. Ani is never physically hurt (intentionally) even when the rich parents of the Russian manchild she hooks up with send their middlemen goons to breakup their wedding plans. They're more afraid of her than she is of them.

Instead the type of pain that is inflicted upon Ani is a type of pain that anyone who has ever set out looking for actual human connection is all too familiar with: all everyone/everything around you ever seem to see you as? a means to an end and nothing more. I think that one more important lessons of growing up and maturing into adulthood is learning to be honest with yourself. Doing so allows you to form actual, REAL bonds with others. You'll waste each other's time less. Especially in a country full of people so hellbent on holding onto and lording what little power they have over others. A nation of petty-tyrants. Ani can't even get respect from the DJ at the club she works at, much less her own boss, clients or even coworkers.

You can hardly blame Ani for her behavior and attitude — how the fuck can you expect someone to drop their guard and be vulnerable in a society full of unending self-centered assholes? That's the real core heart-wrenching shit in Anora: the realization that the person you thought was “Real” was simply “Just Like Everyone Else”. It's why I feel masking your desires is so dishonest. You end up giving people the false hope that maybe this time things will be different. The false hope that maybe they can be seen as an actual person; with autonomy and control over their life rather than a pawn — doomed forever to be at the mercy of dickheads.

Anora is also very funny. I kept dying of laughter in scene after scene once the goons show up to clean up after Vanya and Ani’s mess. A day long ordeal involving broken noses, running around Coney Island, and cars getting towed. Anyone who’s ever had a terrible, slog, nightmare of a day that just never seems to end will appreciate the humor: all the “real” adults — played by Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan as Igor, Toros, and Garnick respectively — just trying to clean up after a couple of stupid kids before their “real” bosses show up to yell at them, fire them, or worse. Those scenes are the closest the movie gets to any kind of class solidarity; at the end of the day we’re all just trying to get through and do our fucking jobs with the least amount of headache possible so that we can get paid and go home.

Which makes the ending more impactful — I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s been a while since I’ve been to a movie where the audience was left in complete silence once the credits start rolling. You can mine a lot of laughter at the shit that life throws at you and stop the bleeding for a while, but the bandage won’t hold forever.

Anora is an excellent movie and one of Sean Baker’s best — as real and raw as his previous work such as Tangerine (2015) and The Florida Project (2017) — films which also dealt with the lives of sex workers.

I absolutely recommend it.