Anora

Movie Name: Anora
Year of Release: 2024
Director: Sean Baker
Starring: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Aleksei Serebryakov, Darya Ekamasova, Luna Sofía Miranda, Lindsey Normington
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 4
Watch it on Hulu

Synopsis and Review

After the well received "Red Rocket", Sean Baker landed the biggest hit of his career thus far with "Anora", which won the Palm D'Or at Cannes, followed by winning a barrage of other awards, including the Academy Award for best picture, director, screenplay, and editing, all for him alone. The film follows the story of Anora, or Ani as she prefers to be named, who is a stripper living in Brighton Beach, but working in a fancy club in Manhattan. She meets a young man by the name of Ivan, who also goes by the name of Vanya, who comes infatuated with her. Vanya is Russian and Ani can speak and understand Russian because of her family background. He hires her for several sex dates, and after a New Year's party, offers her $15,000.00 to spend a whole week with him. As it happens, Vanya is the son of a Russian oligarch, and has money to burn. During the week they spend together, they go off to Las Vegas with a group of friends, and Vanya proposes to her, since he does not want to go back to Russia, and confesses to Ani that he is smitten with her. While Ani is initially reluctant, she soon agrees and they elope at a Vegas wedding chapel. Upon returning to the NY area, Ani quits her job and moves to Vanya's mansion. The news of the wedding/marriage soon reach Vanya's parents, who go ballistic on him and on the people hired to keep an eye on him. Toros, Vanya's godfather, is livid and wants to get the marriage immediately annulled. Vanya in the meantime escapes the mansion, while Ani refuses any annulment. They decide to seek out Vanya and find a way to resolve the situation before his parents arrive.

I admit I've been a fan of Sean Baker's past feature films, particularly "Tangerine", "The Florida Project", and "Red Rocket". "Anora" is the first of his films that has left me baffled, because it has this hybrid tone which mixes a pseudo Hollywood romance with his particular quasi-documentary style approach, focused on people who are on the fringes of society, in this case a stripper/sex worker. My bafflement doesn't stem from the hybrid aspect of the narrative, but mostly from the fact that this long film tracks an array of characters trying to locate an individual with the sole purpose of annulling a marriage, with characters that lack development, emotional depth, or for that matter, interest. On all of his prior films, all his characters, even the ones who didn't have much development, have always created a desire to know more about who they are, where they come from, and where does the narrative will eventually take them. "Anora" on the other hand, has a few comedic moments, but aside from those, it consists of a long journey populated with uninteresting characters who are as shallow and superficial when the film started, as they are when the film ends. Granted, not every film has to be a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life, and not every film requires for characters to have emotional epiphanies, but this is one rare case where what is taking place is literally going nowhere. As an audience member you always want to be captured by the storytelling that is taking place, but this one is literally a narrative populated with emotionally underdeveloped characters who ultimately have very little to say about themselves, about their connections, and about the world they inhabit. The cast does a fair job with the material they have, particularly Karren Karagulian as Toros. The production team is solid, particularly Drew Daniels' cinematography. I'm puzzled how this film won Sean Baker all these awards, but hopefully this will grant him the funds and support to continue to do his storytelling that has, up until this film, been so fantastic.