Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threaten...
WHAT I LIKED: Sean Baker has always been interested in struggling characters who use humour and bravado to convince the world and themselves that they're doing fine, and 'Anora,' is another case in point.
It follows s*x-worker Ani meeting the son of a Russian businessman called Ivan who offers to pay her to be his girlfriend. Swept up in the rebellion against his parents and the admiration she brings him, he ends up marrying her, and she accepts because she sees it as a way out for her. You know it's not though, and before long his parents send their goons to split them up. Ivan inevitably runs off leaving Ani to find him and cling onto the relationship, and she's driven to more and more desperation until he's found, but then he just flies off with his folks never to see her again.
The most engaging thing about watching that struggle is Mikey Madison's transformative performance, as she does a great job of portraying how hard Ani's working to defend her hollow new relationship in the face of criticism from her colleagues, the noncommittal Ivan, and Ivan's family. Deep down she surely knows she's being used, but she never lets up the bravado, presumably because she's scared of acknowledging it herself. At the very least, that makes for a great portrayal of a character, and, like you do for Henry Hill in Goodfellas, you'll watch desperate for her to wake up to her circumstance and somehow find a different way out.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Sadly, she never does, as after the relationship ends, she once again finds a man to cling to, albeit whilst seeming to finally acknowledge the tragedy of her situation. All of that makes this a very dark story, and one where the characters are victims of individual exploitation rather than the poverty or circumstance of Baker's other films. The trouble for me is that it's not really played as a tragedy, and a big chunk is actually played for humour - particularly the exhaustingly repetitive arguments that ensue between Ani and Ivan's family goons whilst Ivan is missing.
VERDICT: Sean Baker's 'Anora,' is a frustrating and hopeless tale of exploitation packaged in a bunch of bravado and comedy.
