Review: Anora

Directed by: Sean Baker

Written by: Sean Baker

Starring: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian

Rating: [4.5/5]

Finding a Prince Charming has remained a goal Disney princess movies have set as an aspirational for young girls. A man who will come and take a young maiden away from her current life circumstance and into another filled with luxury and ease. Seeking the same prospect in the real world will have anyone hard-pressed, which Anora displays in a film filled with such beautiful delusion and craziness to an enthralling degree.

Applying her trade successfully as an exotic dancer, Anora (Mikey Madison) gets hand-picked for a patron specifically looking for a Russian-speaking stripper. While giving him the time of his life, Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) offers Anora the opportunity to be exclusive with him for a period of time for a healthy sum of cash. As the pair spend time together, things begin to get serious, which alerts the other people in Vanya’s life who learn about this entanglement. 

Aptly described as an X-rated Pretty Woman, Sean Baker returns with another thunderbolt of a film in Anora where he flexes his directorial muscles like never before. The story beats of this feature go pretty much the way you think it will as the narrative progresses, but the manner in which it navigates makes for such an equally hilarious and tragic ride as we go on it with our lovely titular character. It makes for such an electrifying film that will make the audience feel every bit of emotion on all fronts. 

Sean Baker has proven himself as a filmmaker intrigued in highlighting the lives of individuals society tries to ignore and exotic dancers certainly fit within that description. Often looked down upon by men other than when their services get solicited by those very individuals. Anora, like Baker’s other films, does not care to throw a pity party for its lead character nor does it overly romanticize her life. We see Anora’s day-to-day as a stripper for what it is, a job that she clocks into, except this job involves her wearing minimal clothing and encouraging men to raid the ATM to pay for private lap dances. This opening sequence contains this beauty in displaying our titular character just doing her thing and establishing she certainly has a talent for it. This all leads to her eventual meeting with Vanya and how her life gets completely turned on its head. 

These early moments with Vanya displays this youthful and gleeful exuberance as they continue to party where she also happens to get paid a handsome wage for it as per their agreement. The business arrangement then begins to blur when Vanya asks Anora to marry him, which unleashes the rest of this hilariously scary plot that goes absolutely bananas. This realization of Vanya’s action brings in the two incredible supporting performances of Yura Borisov as henchman Igor Karren Karagulian as the fixer, Toros. Two characters that leave an indelible mark in this film and ultimately who make this incredibly enjoyable.

As the immature Vanya flees, Anora spends the majority of this film with Igor and Toros, which makes for a never ending series of hijinks as these two try to get control of this situation and our titular character makes it anything but easy for them. Examining these two characters allows for a highlight of other types of characters who rarely get the level of attention these two do here. Contemporary stories like to focus on lavish lifestyles as aspirational, but this film mostly ejects those figures from this story for the majority of the runtime and spends most of the time with the working class figures in Anora, Toros, and Igor. Three individuals, who mostly exist as either tools for a means of violence with Igor or resolution with Toros and then of pleasure with Anora. These three go from place to place trying to find Vanya trying to accomplish different things but all in service to the rich people who hold their livelihood in their hands. You’d almost hope for some class solidarity between all three of them but they are mere byproducts of what life has allowed them at this point. The moments shared between this trio carries this strange duality where as audience members we see it as a hilarious circumstance as outsiders watching it all go down. However, when taking a moment to see if from the perspective of our lead character, having these two men coerce her to agree to find Vanya and get this marriage annulled is a terrifying situation. Somehow, Baker strikes the perfect balance and it all works perfectly. 

Amongst everything happening in this film including the hilariously fun supporting performances by our trio of men Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, and Karren Karagulian, this film belongs solely to Mikey Madison. Doing a great job as a psychotic side character as seen in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood… and 2022’s Scream, Madison receives the opportunity to headline her own film and absolutely crushes it. She brings this unabashed attitude as the lead character in the way she unapologetically carries out this delusion that this will all end well for her. A lightning rod who electrifies every single scene and she ensures to take advantage of this star-making role. 

All in all, for as straightforward as its narrative may be, Anora contains emotional multitudes in the way this feature makes the audience feel. From intense humor from the outside, the fear through the eyes of our titular character, but also a vein of sadness as we barrel towards the conclusion. Anora quickly becomes such a memorable character and an easy one to love as she navigates quite the crazy life circumstance and tries to find a way to end up on top against all of the odds.