A Modern Cinderella

On Sean Baker's Anora

Ani is good at her job. She’s warm and inviting, she’s skilled, she puts up a hell of a fight when she needs to hold her ground, and she doesn’t suffer fools. Her coworkers like her. She knows what she deserves, even if she isn’t getting it right now. And like most of us, she knows what it means to “make it” and wants it just as bad as we do. So when a Russian speaking client, who Ani alone can manage, arrives flashing cash, a door opens, and Ani walks through it.

Mikey Madison leads Anora in the part of Ani with confidence and verve and a thick New Jersey accent. The movie asks a lot of her, emotionally as well as physically – some minor stunt work, some major dancing – and she meets writer/director Sean Baker’s asks with firm answers. It’s the first lead role Madison has had in a feature film, and the first real part I’ve seen her in (I haven’t done a Better Things (2016-2022, FX) watch, and I haven’t seen the popular new Scream (2022) movie – both personal errors I hope to someday fix). Madison succeeds here, but I am also left wondering what else she is capable of, since Anora leaves certain performance nuances off the table.

Sean Baker’s eighth feature length work is crackling. It is an outright comedy which Baker’s editing skills create with precision and care. His narrative interests remain steadfast – classism, sex, and lower-class workers battling against snobbery, ignorance, finances, circumstances, themselves – but rather than a holistic study that his films have been, Anora is a slick, slapstick comedy of errors that only ever dips its toes into deep character study.

Most of the laughs come from the Russian family at the center of the drama, and from the henchmen that work for them. Vanya, the wealthy client who woos Ani, is a rich son of a rich oligarch who is quick to finance his desires, and quicker to run out of the house when daddy comes calling. Toros is the chaperone to America for Vanya, and is scared for his well-being when the little shit runs off and gets married. He has no answers for the oligarch, and when he sends his right-hand man Garnick to knock on the door, we begin the longest scene of the film, when everyone discovers what everyone else is doing, and the “adults” in the room try to take charge. Chaos and comedy quickly take over.

Along for the ride, acting as a sort of enforcer for the “adults” in the room, is Igor, played by Yura Borisov, who brings the most individual depth to the screen. Igor is asked to do the impossible: physically detain the high-energy, high-alert newlywed Anora. Igor seems to be the only person in the room really seeing or listening to anyone else – an intentional point – and is the character that the viewer and the camera finds their eyes and interests wandering towards.

This is Sean Baker’s longest film to date, and it moves well. It plays around with time, and showcases, again, Baker’s editing. The use of, and switching between, diegetic music and film scoring, as well as the leveraging  of loud music that cuts to silence, and finally an effective needle-drop-montage; it all helps avoid monotony and create energy. The crunching and elongating of time plays a big role, as the first third of the movie takes place over the course of a week in the characters’ lives, while the final two thirds slow to about 30 hours. When we slow down, the sturdiness of Madison and Borisov take over, and they effectively hold the screen. Baker shows another talent in the creating and maintaining of tension with the threat of violence, which is always prevalent in the pseudo-hostage situation that Ani finds herself in, and we feel Baker playing with audience expectations.

It is a fascinating turn for Baker, who also brings back his knack for casting, his astute lighting and location photography, and his successful collaboration with actors. Some viewers have noted the lack – and longed for the return – of the considerate character work from his past; others have LMAO’d to giving this five-star ratings. I find myself somewhere in the middle, having had the most fun in the theater with Anora than with any other 2024 release (and it was great with a crowded theater), but also feeling the lack of a certain special something that Baker alone was always delivering on. I appreciate the presence of the ideas behind the movie – of being seen, of how people see you, of how we see ourselves, how there is nothing behind the flashy charisma of wealthy men, of the many “rich people fucking suck” punches that Ani and the script throw – and I appreciate the mode in which the movie is working, along with most, if not all, of it’s moving parts. But when the credits rolled, I found myself wanting. What I enjoy most about the movie, after the fact, is the continued celebration and rise of Sean Baker, of Mikey Madison, and of a small production. The movie is succeeding financially, and there is even “internet noise” about Anora getting a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. We should be so lucky.

The ultimate tell of the movie is the final scene, in which Baker shows what’s on his mind, and shows his hand. You get to decide if it’s blackjack, or bust.