“Anora” (2024) takes the “stripper with a heart of gold meets white knight” fairy tale (most famously seen in “Pretty Woman”) and turns it on its ear amid a rollercoaster of soft-core porn, “Fargo”-esque realistic-absurdist comedy and sneaky development of side characters. Through it all, we think about the relative humanity of everyone on screen.
Money and sex know no language barrier
If writer-director Sean Baker was aiming for a stock rom-com, we’d grow to genuinely like Ani (Mikey Madison) and Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), despite (and because of) their human flaws. Initially, we like them in an “isn’t that cute” sort of way wherein Vanya can’t speak great English and Jersey Shore-accented Ani can’t speak great Russian.
But they are driven to communicate because he likes her in the manner of a 21-year-old (or so he claims) desiring a smoking-hot woman, and she likes him in the manner of him being a steady source of income. Though Ani is a stripper in the initial montage and she takes deep offense at being called a “prostitute” later, she is indeed a prostitute, and a very good one. It’d be like if Babe Ruth took offense at being called a baseball player.
“Anora” (2024)
Director: Sean Baker
Writer: Sean Baker
Stars: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov
Madison and Eydelshteyn are excellent in portraying something there isn’t an ideal word for. They have acting chemistry in the way they portray Mikey and Vanya as not quite having chemistry. Because it’s a movie, we look for hints that maybe they truly like each other – even if we were to set money and hotness aside.
But even while being swept up in the blizzard of high-end strip-club montages and parties at the rich youth’s lavish mansion, a small percentage of our brain registers that it still is dough and physical attractiveness keeping these two together.
Madison masters that vacant-smile stripper look, and Eydelshteyn captures that age when an immature person tries to fake maturity, but he slips into swearing and is instantly distracted by sex, booze, drugs and video games.
Scene-stealing supporting cast
Granted, “Anora” does not outright skip the expected beats of this adult fairy-tale structure. Vanya’s parents, back in Russia — leaving him under the supposed supervision of his Armenian godfather, Toros (Karren Karagulian) – believe it’s time for Vanya to end his wild ways and join the family business. Ani’s rival at the strip club tells her Vanya is not the lottery ticket she thinks he is; she’s not going to climb out of this lifestyle so easily.
But Baker never truly aims to take the path promised by the smiling leads in the poster, that Ani and Vanya live happily ever after because their love is stronger than the haters. As the story progresses, both become less likeable.
Instead, “Anora” shines when Toros comes on the scene, along with his muscle, Igor (subtly scene-stealing Yura Borisov) and Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan), and suddenly we’re in the world of “Fargo.” It’s not totally my type of humor, but it’s well-done here. The sequence where the Armenians aim to keep Ani at the mansion, but likewise don’t want to hurt her, is the type of awkward violence not often seen outside Coen Brothers films.
“Anora” is built on a trope but ends up boldly idiosyncratic. In how many movies does the male lead run out of a key scene, henceforth reduced to a maguffin? “The Hangover,” perhaps. And how often do the two leads remain at their scene-one level of development while we instead get caught up in the lives of three henchmen?
This very good dark comedy doesn’t conclude with a laugh. Baker reminds us that if Ani wants the “happily ever after” of fiction, she’s hampered by two strikes against her: 1, she’s not likeable enough, and 2, even if she was, it’s irrelevant, because she’s been playing by real-world rules all along; her rival coworker was right. “Anora” is cinema as a false escape, in an enjoyably instructive way.