'Anora' Gives Us a Best Actress Frontrunner | Review

Sex and Class in Sean Baker’s America

Final scenes can make or break a film. There are numerous classic films whose final shots alone come to mind the moment you mention their name: the two main characters in The Graduate, John Wayne walking while framed through a doorway in The Searchers, the door closing on Kay in The Godfather. 

Anora makes a strong argument for inclusion in that pantheon. Without giving too much away, it’s a long take of an intimate moment between the eponymous protagonist and an ancillary character. Director Sean Baker lets the camera linger as the audience waits for the film to conclude. But the central character arc would be incomplete without the film’s vulnerable final moments. It’s devastating.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Baker’s oeuvre. He has mastered the art of making a devastating ending — his 2019 film The Florida Project closes on a moment that toes the line between fantasy and reality and whose euphoria drives home the heartbreak of the film’s themes.

Baker has made a career out of telling stories that humanize sex workers, and Anora is his magnum opus in that category. Baker crafts an often laugh-out-loud funny romantic comedy about an unlikely pairing of a sex worker and the spoiled child of a Russian oligarch.

His biggest coup of the film is his casting of Mikey Madison, whose performance will have her rightfully on the shortlist for Best Actress. As an actress whose two most high-profile roles involve playing (spoilers for Scream VI and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) sadistic murderers, Madison’s edge is on display in the early scenes of Anora, where she plays the titular sex worker-turned-green-card-wife. Her Anora has a worldliness about her, an awareness of exactly how the dynamics in her strip club play out, and how she can work the system while protecting herself.

Madison maintains that edge throughout the film. Anora never feels taken advantage of, even as she makes decisions that feel naive at best and actively harmful at worst. But it’s a credit to Madison that she’s able to craft such a nuanced character whose harsh exterior can pay off in a final scene that hits hard. 

It helps that Baker imbues the film with a sense of humor throughout. There are so many memorable little moments where humor reveals character. A throwaway facial reaction here, a big laugh from a side character there. Baker is a filmmaker who demonstrates deep empathy for all of the characters on screen, and it’s a credit to him that no one in Anora feels like a stereotype, even as many of them often play for laughs.

Baker’s direction also plays up the emptiness of so much of the wealth on display. Vanya’s home, the setting of a significant amount of the first half’s action, is extravagant and stunning but clearly lacks any human touch. Its destruction during a show-stopping 28-minute set-piece rightfully puts the characters at the forefront while making any property destruction feel satisfying for the audience. All of the more middle-class locations feel so much richer and more lived-in than Vanya’s superficial abode (complete with an elevator!).

Anora makes a strong case a major Oscar contender, which tracks with its success at the Cannes film festival. So much of the film plays like a raunchy raucous romp. But those final moments pull the story and the emotional arc of its central character together in a manner that will remain with audiences long after the credits roll. It deserves all of the praise it’s going to receive come awards season.

---

‘Anora’ is now playing in theaters. Rated R for strong sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, pervasive language, and drug use.

---