Anora (2024): Hilarious and Poignant Alt-Fairy Tale

                                                                by Len Weiler

The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) is a great showcase for new world-class movies.  It screens scores of upcoming films, international and domestic, documentaries and narrative films, including many award-hopefuls expected to be released in the coming weeks and months. It’s also relatively low key and reasonably accessible. For me it has the additional advantage of being held in Marin County, California only about a forty-five minute drive from my home. The 2024 MVFF – which ran from October 3 through 13 - included films by great directors like Almodóvar, Edgar Berger, Sean Baker, Marielle Heller, and Steve McQueen, with stars like Amy Adams, Saoirse Ronin, Ralph Fiennes, John David Washington, Jude Law, and Zoe Zaldana.   

I was able to see fifteen of these films, of which I liked or loved thirteen – an excellent batting average. Today, because they are about to have their theatrical releases, I am publishing reviews of two of the best: Conclave and Anora.  I hope to review a few more of the movies I enjoyed over the coming weeks. Anora is the first of these to be released, so I’ll begin with that. 

Anora

Independent filmmaker Sean Beker’s latest movie, Anora, was a much-anticipated arrival at MVFF, having won the coveted top prize (Palm d’Or) at the Cannes Film Festival this past Spring. Baker’s last three films, Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017), and Red Rocket (2021) were all critical favorites.  True to form only more so, Anora and its ascendent star,  Mikey Madison, have received a string of accolades from film critics world wide – like Peter Debruge in Variety [“Sparkles like the tinsel in its leading lady’s hair”], Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian [ “Amazing, full-throttle tragicomedy of romance, denial and betrayal … [and] a terrific performance from Madison”], Jessica Kiang in Sight and Sound [“By turns swoony, funny, panicky and sad, this is the director's most vivid creation yet.”] and Justin Chang in The New Yorker [“A strip-club Cinderella story - and a farce to be reckoned with”]. 

I’ll just start by saying that Anora is a smart, very funny, insightful, sensitive and thrilling film that I’ll not soon forget. And 25-year-old Mikey [Mikaela] Madison, as the title character, is a revelation. Madison is probably best known for her featured role as the teenage Max in the series Better Things, which ran from 2016 to 2022; and for her portrayal of the crazed, screaming would-be-killer Susan “Sadie” Atkins in the last segment of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019). Madison is in every scene of Anora, and she’s the heart and soul of the picture. The best way to describe her phenomenal performance is, in a word, WOW!  It’s a real breakout performance by a rising star.

Anora is a modern-day fairy tale, albeit a twisted one. In the traditional story, Cinderella spends most of the tale trying to connect with a handsome Prince (and vice versa), thwarted at every turn by her wicked stepmother, until magic brings the two together and they marry, living happily thereafter - a union that was meant to be. Here, Anora, who goes by Ani, is a sex worker in a Brooklyn nightclub, cozying up to male customers, and giving lap dances for/to them in the VIP room.  There’s no wicked step-mom and moreover, Ani seems not to dislike her job, which she’s very good at.  The connection part happens early on when a wealthy young customer named Ivan (Mark Eidelshtein) falls head over heels for Ani. He’s not an actual prince, but he is the spoiled son of a hideously rich Russian family, which is about as close as a girl can get these days. But this is definitely NOT a relationship that was meant to be.

Ivan, also known as Vanya, is happy to spend barrels of cash on Ani, so she’s game. Plus, he is cute, fun-loving, and roughly her own age, unlike most of her clients, so she likes him. Soon, the action moves from the club to his fabulous mansion, and it’s party time all the time, with Ani raking in some big bucks all the while. When the besotted Ivan convinces a skeptical Ani that they should get married, they, along with Ivan’s posse, take a spur of the moment trip (private jet of course) to Vegas. It really seems like a fairy tale to Ani.

But before the ink has dried on the marriage certificate, the shit hits the fan. And it's what happens next that takes up most of the story. Word reaches Nicolai Zakharov and Galina Zakharov, Ivan’s oligarch parents in Moscow, and they, especially Galina [Darya Ekamasova], are not amused. 

Nor, for that matter are they bemused. Galya is on the case in an instant, ordering their Brooklyn fixer, Toros, to grab their dimwit son and his harlot, tear them asunder, and keep them – especially Ivan - under lock and key until they get there.  The Zakharovs head immediately to the airport.  The timing couldn’t be worse for Toros (Karren Karagullian) when he gets the call, which makes for an amusing moment as he awkwardly extracts himself from his regular gig as a priest to follow the masters’ orders. When he arrives at the Zakharov mansion with his henchman Igor [Yura Borisov - excellent] things immediately go awry, and the real madcap situations begin their accelerating progress downhill. To tell you any more would spoil the fun – and it is a lot of fun. It’s been described as tragicomic, but initially it’s the comedy that predominates. And much of Anora is an absolute hoot. 

This is a Sean Baker movie, which means it also has heart. As brassy and tough as Ani seems on the outside, as her fairytale world starts to crumble, we see how fragile and scared she is inside. Madison’s performance and Baker’s writing and direction are so great, that, as one scribe has put it (and I paraphrase, because I can’t recall who made the observation) – for the first half of the movie, despite what she does and her transactional view of the world; you can’t help but like Ani; but by the end you can’t help but love her. The end, in fact, is one of the sweetest and at the same time heartbreaking final moments of any film I’ve seen in a long time. You are likely to feel the same when you see it. As you should.

Pretty much all the actors here are quite good. These four, I think deserve special recognition: 22-year-old Mark Eidelschtein, as the unserious, unreliable but enthusiastic young sybarite Ivan/Vanya, is a great find; Karren Karagulian, a Sean Baker regular who has been in every Baker film since at least Tangerine, really hits his mark as Toros, the well-intentioned thuggish fixer; Darya Ekamasova, as Mrs. Zakharov, is a Russian “she who must be obeyed”; and especially Yura Borisov as Igor, who in trying to rein in a very angry and upset Ani, but can’t help but admire her moxie and her spirit. 

Anora has been compared favorably by some to Pretty Woman, the 1990 movie starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, also about a sex worker and a rich guy. That movie sugar-coated the reality of Roberts’ occupation, focusing instead on her romance with suave, handsome Gere.  Anora is grittier and despite being a comedy, feels way more authentic. If you are prudish, be forewarned that this movie does include some quite graphic (but not pornographic) nudity, especially in the first act, what with the lap dancing, etc. It’s not prurient, and it’s essential to understanding Ani, but it’s there.

To be honest, about one in four people that I met at MVFF did not care for Anora. But the other 75%, like me, really liked it.  In fact, Anora may be my favorite of the fifteen films I saw at the festival. It’s in the top three for sure. It is a film that sneaks up on you, despite the funny bits and the dramatic bits, with a sense of being unsentimentally real. It has something to say about class, sex and, by the end, about love. I’d call it a great picture.

2 hours 19 minutes                 Rated R

Grade: A

Opens in a few select theaters on October 18, 2024, a bit more widely on October 22, 2024, including San Francisco, and [according to Neon Films] “ Everywhere” in November. Check for dates and tickets in your area here.