by Oscar O’Sullivan

For the first third or so of Sean Baker’s film Anora, we are invited to live vicariously in a world free of worries or consequences, the playground of the young, the beautiful, and the obscenely rich. Anora (Mikey Madison) has hit the jackpot by catching the eye of Ivan ‘Vanya’ Zacharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), a Russian rich kid living the high life in the U.S. of A on his parent’s dime. From the moment he comes into the club where she works and starts stuffing money into the waistband of her panties, it should be clear where this is going – the spoilt brat buys more and more time with his beautiful new friend, who is more than happy to indulge him as he invites her into his modern-art-bullshit mansion and flies her to Vegas for a week of hedonism with his awful hangers-on. Why she puts up with this flailing, awkward, brainless manchild is no great mystery, especially when we compare the luxury he offers to the brief glimpses of her humdrum life we get early on. So of course she says yes when he impulsively proposes a Vegas marriage to secure himself U.S. citizenship, even though there’s no way she could possibly love him. She may convince herself that she loves him, she certainly loves the lifestyle he provides for her, but there’s no way that Anora – shown to be smart, self-sufficient and capable – would be foolish enough to believe that this marriage was anything more than a passing fancy, a convenience for him that happens to be her ticket to the good life. Right?

The peak of the film comes immediately at the beginning of the second act, when Vanya’s powerful parents learn about their son’s marriage and are, in a word, pissed. From Russia they send word to Vanya’s godfather Toros (Karren Karagulian), a beleaguered middle manager who has to awkwardly exit what seems to be his own child’s baptism to deal with things. He in turn sends hapless thugs Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov) to grab the happy couple so that they can have the marriage annulled before mummy and daddy arrive Stateside to retrieve their wayward son. Vanya, being an adult baby, does the only logical thing – he runs, leaving his stunned bride to fumble through a slapstick confrontation that had the audience in stitches, and rightly so. Not only is it visually hilarious – debilitating injuries are always fun provided they’re happening to somebody else – the awkward overlapping dialogue is put to it’s best use as the combatants alternatively bargain and scream at each other, all underscored by Toros’ panicked tones over the speakerphone demanding someone tell him what the hell is going on. From here, the film settles into a comfortable (if predictable) form, with Anora forced to accompany the gangsters as they hunt high and low for Vanya across New York, with all kinds of wacky scrapes along the way. Through it all, Anora is insistent that she just needs to talk to her husband, that there’s no way in hell that he’ll agree to a split, that they’re going to be together forever, parents be damned – even the offer of ten grand to walk away doesn’t sway her, when compared to the absurd luxury of live with Vanya. So obviously she is fighting so hard to keep a hold of her meal ticket, right? Unfortunately, the film doesn’t actually seem to know. The way the second and third acts are structured doesn’t work emotionally unless Anora’s despair comes from a place of genuine love, rather than self-serving (and entirely justifiable) greed. We are presented with beats and revelations that require us to believe their love story, but the film offers neither compelling proof that she actually loves him or a reason for the audience to even want them to be in love.

If you have any sort of critical thinking skills, you’ll immediately see through the film’s thin emotional gesturing. Thankfully, Anora doesn’t lean all that heavily on grand cathartic payoffs to tell its story – if anything it thrives on the more ambiguous currents that run through it, most potently with the character of Igor, who becomes a complicit observer of Anora’s plight. The film’s class commentary is astoundingly flat considering the subject matter but clearly positions Igor in the same underclass as Anora, a tool to be used by his betters in exchange for a taste of luxury. As a man, Igor is inherently better off – his body is a tool of violence rather than pleasure, his profession less emotionally volatile. He can afford to be neutral, to speak his mind and make his own decisions – never outright defying orders, but certainly not hiding his disapproval for some turns the night takes. We never learn what Anora thinks or feels about her profession, whether the copious amounts of sex she has with Vanya were genuinely pleasurable or just another business transaction. In fact, we learn essentially nothing about Anora throughout this entire 2 hour and 20 minute film. The only personality she has is the one Mikey Madison imbues her with through her noisy, boisterous performance. Anora as written has no likes or dislikes, no opinions, no hopes or dreams, no past and likely no future either. Even when the plot is in full swing she’s a passive character, literally incapable of affecting her own destiny in any way shape or form. If that’s an intended part of the commentary, then I can see where Baker is coming from – highlighting the helplessness of people trapped in exploitative industries. But I can’t help but feel that the film is playing at being empowering while it tears its lead down for abstract, ideological reasons. That’s the way life is, it must be said, bad things happening to good people, and there is a catharsis to be found in confronting that fact – a lesser catharsis than if she had a more active role in her own life, certainly, but still compelling in its own way. And perhaps it would also be a stretch to call Anora a good person in the first place. She’s certainly not wicked enough to deserve the shabby treatment she gets, but I’d struggle to list her good qualities all the same. The more I think on the film, the more pronounced the moral ambiguity becomes, Baker’s intent (if indeed he intended anything at all) becoming muddier and muddier.

Am I digging too deep? The film is undeniably well made, if conventional and clean looking, with the most formal fun being had during the endless floating montage of luxury and fucking that comprises the first act. Mikey Madison can’t be praised enough for the work she does to make a stock character interesting, even if it feels a little like wasted effort, but the same can be said of everyone in the film to an extent – attention-grabbing pantomimes of very simple characters, made compelling by the absurdity of the scenario we meet them in. They may reveal different facets of themselves as the night progresses, but they don’t grow or change. Why should they? People don’t change, at least not in so short a timeframe. Vanya will always be a spoiled little boy playing video games in his parent’s house, too immature to commit to anything. The men who work for his parents will never rise above their silly little squabbles and anxieties, their lives never fully their own as they risk their wellbeing as glorified babysitters. And Anora – well, Anora is Anora. 8/10.