‘Anora’ Review: Sean Baker’s Joyous New York City Tale Finds Love in a Hopeless Place and a Superstar in Mikey Madison | Cannes

Not every girl wants to be somebody’s princess, but anyone who does, should be given the opportunity. This is not exactly what Sean Baker wants to preach with his contender for the Palme D’or, but the freedom he grants to the titular protagonist in Anora invites us to think that. In the film, a young woman is not afraid to try to have it all and even the prospect of failing cannot take away the feel-good quality of Baker’s work. What we have here is a romance, Sean Baker style. Anora is a 23-year-old sex worker who sees the young son of a Russian oligarch as a little bit more than a golden ticket. Baker’s follow-up to Red Rocket is a boisterous comedy of errors, where a girl really tries to own that Cinderella story.

The American director cast Mikey Madison, from the 2022 Scream reboot, as Ani (short for Anora, a name too foreign for her self-image). Her cat-eye and acrylic nails tell us she’s a fighter, as much as her feisty demeanor does. Madison’s magnetism seems endless and her soft voice can allure anyone into doing anything, really. However, she is ambitious and down-to-earth, only taking advantage of situations and people who deserve it. As an exotic dancer, she sells arousal and on occasion, sex too. This is how she meets babyface Ivan (Mark Eydeshteyn) in the club back room. “He needs someone who speaks Russian,” the manager says to Ani, implying that every big spender should be well taken care of.

Ivan is just what you’d expect from a spoiled rich kid—well-combed arrogance and endless cash flow to excuse every impropriety—but with Ani, he is a gentleman who worships her. Of course, the purity of his admiration does not preclude him from paying for sex (lasting roughly ten minutes at a time) and her company in general. For her to be Ivan’s ‘very horny girlfriend for the week’ costs Ivan 15k in dollars, but what he doesn’t know is how much their spontaneous trip to Vegas will amount to. It seems like a fair trade-off, since the parties, trips, and all-nighters take Ani out of her monotonous work-sleep-work routine. Instantly, the world seems brighter than it was before. For the whole first half of the film, we are submerged into their (doomed) fairytale: the energy is high and so are they. 

Even if implicated within a cycle of cocaine lines at night and sobering shots in the morning, the growing affection between them two feels blissfully genuine. It’s in the silly jokes and the laughter they elicit; it’s in the ‘us-against-the-world’ recklessness: young love at its cheesiest looks best on 35mm. Anora is Baker’s first film set in the big city proper and it has to look glorious. For this reason, the American director is counting on Drew Daniels (Red Rocket, Waves) to convey the whirlwind of emotions that flow through Anora at a 100 miles per second; flamboyant camera movements swish over neon and sunshine alike to match the fast-paced romance burgeoning between Ivan and Ani.

But as any Eastern European person will tell you, nothing good lasts forever. That particular brand of comedic pessimism is also one of the main ingredients of Anora and becomes even more prominent when news of the Vegas wedding reaches Ivan’s parents. And just like that, the reality of Russian power bursts the bubble of their carefree love affair. Ivan, like any self-respecting man, makes a run for it (through the front door), leaving Ani in the hands of henchman Toros (Karren Karagulian) and his two sidekicks, Igor (Yuri Borisov) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan). As a director, Baker is does not hesitate to let chaos unravel and that very long sequence does just exactly that, allowing us to sympathize with these poor cronies whose impossible task of the day requires them to stop a young boy on the run and to tame a young girl who’s determined to kick up a fuss. It’s as if a fight scene was fully framed as physical comedy, which sets the tone for Anora‘s second, more unexpected part.

A wild chase across New York ensues, in an attempt to recover Ivan and annul the marriage, while Ani’s hope for future riches is shrinking by the minute. Baker, who also wrote the script and served as editor, knows that placing his protagonists in unlikely situations can expose much more about them than anything they can ever say or do by themselves. So naturally, that works for Ani to a delightful degree.

Anora is fun and frivolous, even when its humor is a little too obvious; even if you can’t predict the various, increasingly comic obstacles that stand in Ani’s way, you can easily guess the arc her character is destined to have. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, as long as one enjoys the ride, and with a Sean Baker film, it’s impossible not to. Madison is a fresh discovery and thanks to Anora, she can spread her wings and soar; with just the right amount of cynical humor, and quippy comebacks to add to her character’s seductive presence, she might even be a main Best Actress contender.

Grade: B

This review is from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where Anora premiered in Competition. NEON will release the film in the U.S. later this year.

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Savina Petkova

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