For a filmmaker that spends so much of his life studying America’s seamier underbelly and hand-to-mouth economies, Sean Baker is a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. Through the grimy vérité of Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket, he’s constantly fought for the idea that everyone deserves a happy ending – maybe just not the one they think they want.
It’s also no coincidence that Baker is fascinated about the constant tension between Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and her horny little assistant, Eros. He’s regularly focused on sex workers in films like Red Rocket and Tangerine, and he returns to that field with pointed screwball comedy Anora, a giddy and poignant romp through a tempestuous month in the life of lap dancer Anora. Not that she’d respond willingly to the name. She’s Ani and, as played with fully immersed glee and spit by Mikey Madison, she knows who she is. Cute and flirtatious, she works in a high-end club on Brighton Beach, taking guys into the private rooms with no shame or guilt because this is her job and she likes it. Of course, she has the Pretty Woman dream of being whisked away by some handsome billionaire, to spend her days in his mansion fucking and spending money and partying. Yet she actually gets that pipe dream fulfilled when Vanya (Eydelshteyn), a rich kid from a heavily connected Russian family, walks into her club, and she gets her shot at this tousle-haired prince because she’s the only one in the place that speaks any Russian.
Can these crazy kids make it? Of course not. This is a Sean Baker film, and for all his romanticism he’s also clear-eyed about the idiocy of self-delusion. Unlike most chroniclers of the disenfranchised working classes, Baker’s characters aren’t weathering the sociological shitstorm with grace and strength: They barely know they’re getting wet. As Ani and Vanya skid around New York and Vegas like the drunken, thoughtless twentysomethings they are, reality is in hot pursuit in the hilarious form of fixer Toros (Karagulian), the brutish Garnick (Tovmasyan) and soft-spoken Igor (Borisov). Dispatched by Vanya’s parents, they could have readily been written and played as terrifying Russian mob stereotypes. Instead, they’re delightfully goofy, and while they have no interest in hurting Ani to get her away from Vanya, she has zero compassion for them. If Toros has a precursor in Baker’s filmography, it’s in Willem Dafoe’s long-suffering motel manager Bobby in The Florida Project – clear-eyed like Baker, and equally protective of the painfully naive. Even as tiny Ani goes full foul-mouthed Tasmanian Devil while fighting off these three stooges, they never feel cartoonish, and that’s Baker’s genius.
His other extraordinary skill will always be in casting, whether it’s in finding the perfect first-timers in Tangerine or giving established actors a chance to be reappraised, like Simon Rex in Red Rocket. Madison falls into neither category, being a rising talent but still likely best known to moviegoers for getting her face stoved in with a can of dog food in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. This is an undeniable star-making performance for Madison, who finds the grace and charm and stupidity and selfishness and wild-eyed wonder of Mikey, a tough survivor who falls for the oldest fairy tale in the book. However, at every turn she is matched by an ensemble that also embraces the wildness – most especially Borisov, whose quiet charm is the subtle partner to all of Madison’s boisterousness. Of course, all Ani’s schemes come crashing down, but Baker makes sure we wish we were there to catch her.
This article appears in October 25 • 2024.
