Movie Review: ‘Anora’

Director: Sean Baker

Cast: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Aleksei Serebryakov, Darya Ekamasova, Lindsey Normington

Plot: A Brooklyn stripper named Ani meets the son of a Russian oligarch in her club, and the two embark on a whirlwind romance that culminates with marriage. Their life of parties, sex and drugs quickly gets derailed when his family becomes aware of their union, and Ani learns what it is to deal with people for whom consequences don’t exist.

Review: There’s something unusual about going into a movie blind and the first shot is a close-up on a woman’s butt, clad in fishnet, as she performs a lap dance on a client. It certainly set a tone for the next hour of the movie. What happens after that is what makes this a challenging film to concisely review, as it feels like more than one movie got slipped in here. The first extended act of the story sets up Ani (Madison) and her relationship with Vanya (Eydelshteyn) and showcases the level of decadence and hedonism afforded the young, beautiful and impossibly wealthy. Roughly an hour in we experience a shift and we’re watching an almost screwball crime caper snowballing out of control before he end on a sombre, emotional moment.

This is Madison’s movie from beginning to end. To say that she bares all is an understatement, as she fully commits physically and emotionally to the ups and downs of Ani’s brief stint in Vanya’s world. Introduced as a high-priced entertainer at the HQ club, Ani appears confident, easily able to connect with people and stands up for herself. By chance, she’s the only dancer who understands Russian and gets put forward to entertain Vanya. The two strike up a professional relationship, with the boundaries being stretched until Ani is taking a full week off to go and party as Vanya’s “girlfriend” in Vegas.

Unfortunately the glitz and madcap lifestyle seems to blind Ani to some of the red flags put up by Vanya, including avoiding talking about his parents, his disparaging attitude towards his housekeepers and the scary looking dudes who seem to be keeping an eye on him. It’s only after their spontaneous Vegas wedding that the fog begins to clear and she gets a better look at what she’s landed herself with. A couple of heavies employed by Vanya’s parents to keep an eye on him turn up, demanding that the family wants the marriage annulled, Vanya returned to Russia and for no-one to ever find out that he was married to a sex worker. And Vanya does a runner, leaving Ani trapped with some unsavoury characters who are not willing to drop the matter.

With one problem piling up on top of one another, the awkward group of Ani and the toughs spend the night trawling through Brooklyn nightspots trying to find Vanya. The mishaps of this odd group quickly led to the audience laughing out loud and gasping in shock as violence unfolds in unexpected ways. The dynamic between Ani and the stoic Igor (Borisov) is especially sticky, as he doesn’t want to be perceived as a bad person but Ani is not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt given the violence of their first meeting. As we saw at the beginning of the film, Ani will be quick to stand up for herself and what she wants, so when these strangers turn up demanding she ends her marriage, she lashes out in a spectacular fashion.

There are many seeds planted throughout the movie that we’re on the edge of our seats waiting to see how they will sprout. One rival stripper is openly hostile towards Ani, taking any chance to put her down. We know that the group of heavies dragging Ani around town will eventually bring her rival into the orbit and the film never disappoints when it all comes to a head. The ultimate pay-off is the confrontation between Ani and Vanya, who took tail as soon as trouble came to his door, and the meeting with his parents.

For all the colourful supporting characters, this is Ani’s story. We follow her as she ignores the glaring red flags exhibited by Vanya, but she’s so intent on grabbing her opportunity to elevate her position in the world that she turns a blind eye. Vanya is cagey about who his family is, what his future holds and who the sinister looking men at his party are. Eventually she has to accept that Vanya is not her salvation, but part of a disconnected sub-culture of elites for whom consequences do not exist. She hasn’t joined their world, but is ultimately the latest plaything. The final scene of the movie contains more emotion ups and downs that a drunken elevator.

The content of the film – that being a bunch of strippers doing stripper stuff in a strip club – may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but in terms of performance and storytelling this is one of the years best offerings. It is one of the oddest twists we’ve scene on the romantic comedy formula with equal parts bemused chuckling and emotional gut punches.

Rating: EIGHT out of TEN