Sean Baker, “Anora” (2024)
Presenting as a comedy variation on the Cinderella story, “Anora” deftly skewers Western neo-capitalism, the class system and trashy culture that are part and parcel of it, and of the way the wealthy upper layers of neo-capitalist society thoughtlessly (and viciously) treat the poorer, most marginalised levels of society they depend on. The film starts with its titular heroine Anora (Mikey Madison), who prefers to be called Ani, working as a stripper / exotic dancer at a club in New York. Like the Brooklyn working-class neighbourhood where she lives, Ani is hard-bitten, seemingly older than her 23 years, street-smart cunning, and in need of money. In the course of her daily grind (heh-heh), Ani meets Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the spoilt 20-something son of a Russian billionaire couple and the two quickly become obsessed with each other. In no more time than it takes to draw breath, Vanya invites Ani to stay at his palatial home for New Year’s Eve, whisks her off on a week-long holiday to Las Vegas as his girlfriend, and the two get married. Ani quits her job and moves into Vanya’s mansion.
From this moment, life becomes a nightmare for both Ani and Vanya as, once Vanya’s parents find out what their feckless son has done, they quickly move to get the marriage annulled and bring Vanya back to Moscow. Vanya’s godfather Toros (Karren Kargulian) and his two henchmen Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov) invade the mansion, Vanya flees and Ani fights the two henchmen, destroying a lot of furniture and injuring both men. Toros and his men compel Ani to help them find Vanya and so the film begins in earnest as the unlikely gang of four – who probably have more in common with one another than any one of them has with Vanya and his family – traipse wearily around New York, visiting every dive in the Russian and Armenian-American community. (During this time, we see the care with which Igor treats Ani, in spite of his gopnik origins and her US trash culture background.) At last they find him back at Ani’s former workplace and drag him out, but not before Ani and her old nemesis, fellow stripper Diamond (Lindsay Northington), start a brawl.
Toros and his men then drive Ani and Vanya to the airport (from where they have fly to Las Vegas) where Ani meets Vanya’s parents who hold her in contempt. The whole sorry bunch then fly out to LA where Ani threatens to divorce Vanya and Vanya’s mother Galina threatens to destroy Ani financially in the film’s most chilling moments.
On paper, all major characters represent stereotypes of people for whom we need not shed a tear – Ani the tough-as-nails working-class girl, Vanya the spoilt brat, Igor the skinhead gopnik, Toros and Garnik the Caucasian mafia men – yet major and minor characters alike manage to engage audiences to laugh with them rather than at them. For all her grit and hard-headedness, Ani unexpectedly reveals a softer side at the film’s climax, when she realises her life is in total ruin, and the only person who has a link to stability and a life with meaning turns out to be Igor. Despite their fumbling and the never-ending comedy of errors they commit, Toros, Garnik and Igor elicit audience sympathy for the unenviable work they have to do cleaning up the trail of destruction Vanya leaves behind him. All actors, and especially Madison, Borisov and Eydelshteyn, play their stereotype roles to the hilt and yet reveal another, very different side to their characters that flesh them out into three-dimensional people.
At 139 minutes, the film is very lengthy and the plot apparently simple, but the action is so brisk, and all the actors hit their stride so well, that the Cinderella narrative segues into the road movie sub-plot and then the dysfunctional family break-up scenes smoothly and seamlessly. It’s only in the film’s last moments that audiences are able to catch their breath as Ani slowly comes to terms with her new life, in which she is now nothing. For all the fun, trash entertainment and comedy that have come before, the film ends on a sad note with a totally devastated Ani who, having given all the shallow love she had to offer, now cannot give or receive any genuine love.
What makes the film even more commendable and gives it subtlety is its attention to detail, especially in the detail of the lower classes who make life comfortable for Vanya and his family, from the cleaners who tidy up Vanya’s mansion after his parties, to the hired gangsters who cover for Vanya’s mistakes and idiotic behaviour, to Ani who provides entertainment and sex for Vanya. Underlying this all is the power and influence that Vanya’s parents wield – and they do not hesitate to wield that power in ways sinister and savage to get what they want.