New York Film Festival 2024: ANORA

Imagine if Cinderella’s coach not only turned into a pumpkin at midnight but was also kicked to pieces by the king and queen while the prince looked on sucking his thumb, and you have something close to the emotional rollercoaster that is Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning Anora. A potent mix of the screwball wit of Howard Hawks, the chaotic energy of Josh and Benny Safdie, and the incredible empathy of…well, Sean Baker, this story of a sex worker who impulsively marries the son of an oligarch is hilarious enough to make you cry laughing and heartbreaking enough to make you just cry; it’s both a tale as old as time and a tale entirely of this moment.

The People’s Princess

Ani (Mikey Madison in a sparkling, star-making performance) works all night in a Manhattan strip club and sleeps all day in a Brighton Beach apartment she shares with her sister. Because she understands Russian thanks to her Uzbek ancestry, her boss directs Russian-speaking customers her way; one of these customers is Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), an almost adorably enthusiastic young man who, in the middle of Ani’s private dance, can’t help but earnestly declare “I love America!” Ani likes him too—especially the large bills he seems to have a never-ending supply of—so when he asks to see her again, she gives him her number.

Private assignations at Ivan’s sprawling, Scarface-style mansion soon follow, where Ani learns that her new benefactor is the son of an obscenely wealthy oligarch. He’s enjoying a final trip to New York before returning to Russia to take a role at his father’s company—something Ivan is dreading, as it will be the first time in his privileged life he will have to, you know, actually work. Ani, on the other hand, is practically always working; she has to be. That’s why, when Ivan asks Ani to enter an exclusive arrangement to be his “very horny girlfriend” for his final week in the United States, she agrees to do it—for 15 grand in cash. A whirlwind week of sex, drugs, and parties follows, culminating in a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas where the two of them, convinced that this is something like love, decide to get married.

At first, their union seems like the perfect arrangement: Ani gets financial security, Ivan gets a green card, and the two of them get to spend their days lazing around the mansion, occasionally pausing marathon gaming sessions for sex and shopping—basically, the twenty-first century capitalist dream. But when the news reaches Ivan’s powerful parents in Russia, the young couple is abruptly forced to wake up, and Ani all too quickly learns that Ivan is not the knight in shining armor she initially imagined.

Neither Mindful Nor Demure

The first half of Anora functions as a rags-to-riches romantic comedy in which our heroine is swept off her feet by a rich man who can give her everything she’s never had but always dreamed of. However, the second half, in which Ani embarks on a frenetic all-night odyssey through the boardwalk candy stands and Russian restaurants of Brighton Beach with Ivan’s handlers (including frequent Baker collaborator Karren Karagulian), unceremoniously rips away the glossy outer layer of their relationship to remind us that, in the real world, there’s no such thing as a fairy tale happy ending.

As this part of Anora stretches onward, it could very easily grow as exhausting for the audience as it clearly is for Ani and her escorts. Fortunately, it remains utterly exhilarating thanks to the performances of all involved, especially Madison’s delightfully brash yet still very vulnerable work in the titular role. She has the natural charisma of a born movie star yet still manages to be believable as a working-class Brooklyn girl; indeed, Madison’s screwball sex appeal calls to mind the most quintessential of all working class Brooklyn girls, Clara Bow, which is fitting, since this movie could make Madison this generation’s It Girl. When Ani is finally able to confront Ivan about the state of their marriage—a scene you’ve been waiting for for so long that you can’t imagine it will live up to expectations, yet it somehow exceeds them—you can see the devastation flit across Madison’s face as she struggles to maintain her tough facade; when she finally lets her guard down in the film’s final moments, it’s impossible not to feel your heart break for her. The film never judges her, only roots for her, and you will too.

In addition to Madison, Karagulian shines bright as the hilariously exasperated Toros, Ivan’s Armenian godfather who is enlisted by the family to force the marriage to be annulled. Toros is assisted, if you can call it that, by his inept brother, Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), and a bemused bit of Russian muscle named Igor (Yura Borisov); when they attempt to storm the mansion and confront Ivan and Ani about the marriage, the result is an extended medley of profanity and destruction that is guaranteed to have you in hysterics—especially when it becomes clear that the fiery, feisty Ani is more than a match for any of them. Indeed, Ani has built up such a protective barrier of insults and anger around herself that it takes her almost until the end of the movie to realize that Igor might be an ally instead of an enemy. When Ani claims that he would have raped her if given the chance, Igor is more confused than angry; when he tells her she’s wrong, Ani is just as confused to realize that this might be a man interested in her as more than just a sex object.

What really makes Anora (and all of Sean Baker’s movies, for that matter) so enjoyable is that even in the escalating absurdity of the situation, every single character involved looks and feels like a real person. From Ani’s friends and rivals at the strip club to the elderly Russians on the dance floor at Brighton Beach’s famed Tatiana Restaurant, no one on screen feels like an actor playing a role; they feel like themselves, and lend an authenticity to Anora that cannot be easily faked. That the film primarily takes place during January, with the ice cold wind whipping up the sands of the mostly deserted beach, only adds to the atmosphere: this is the New York that not everyone who comes here sees, but that everyone who lives here knows. Drew Daniels’s cinematography captures it all with vibrant, swirling color and movement, and Baker’s energetic editing keeps the pace up even as the film pushes past the two-hour mark.

Conclusion

If you somehow need more proof that artificial intelligence cannot rival the humanity needed to create great art, all you need to do is watch Anora.

Anora is screening as part of the Main Slate at the 2024 New York Film Festival; it opens in theaters in the United States on October 18, 2024.