At the Angelika Film Center in New York City, I went to see the 2024 film Anora, written and directed by Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket), starring Mikey Madison (Better Things, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as Anora, aka Ani, a Brooklyn stripper living in Brighton Beach near Coney Island who is romanced by a young and rich Russian playboy, Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) , in the club and swept into a week-long binge of sex and drugs and partying and an impulsive Vegas quickie marriage.
When his wealthy oligarch family hears of it, it's up to his family's handler, Toros (Karren Karaguilan) and two henchmen to act as the middlemen to get the marriage annulled, but Ani, having been slut-shamed and insulted in Russian (a language she understands but doesn't speak fluently), refuses to be shut up, and her brassy personality proves a force that the family cannot easily buy off her silence, as she demands respect as her husband's wife and not just seen as a disposable sex worker.
The film takes a screwball comedy approach, where a lot of scenes that could be played as serious drama (Ani being partially tied up by a guard to keep her from running away; Ivan taking off from his family's mansion and the group searching all over Brighton Beach for him at Russian-language spots) is played more as farce, with misunderstandings and fights, with a hilarious scene of Ani fighting the henchmen with biting one and kicking another and breaking his nose, smashing objects all over the living room. Toros later gives extra money to the housekeeping crew, letting them know that the house is messier than usual and not to ask questions.
I liked how the film combined the goofy comedy with a somber realization on Ani's face as she is searching for Vanya, trying to call him, and being sent to voicemail, and as she keeps defending herself as his wife and proclaiming her love for him, as well as not wanting to be dismissed as a sex worker, it feels more obvious that he doesn't feel the same for her, and that he isn't worth the effort to stay married to just to prove his family wrong. It's a hard lesson for her to learn, even as a streetwise Brooklyn woman used to hustling men as a stripper, but Vanya tapped into her romantic side with all the sex and playground antics, and she proves to be more of an adult than he is.
As I had seen Madison on the FX show Better Things as a teenager playing the eldest of Pamela Adlon's screen daughters, it did feel a little strange for me to see her in a film where she is topless in several scenes and playing a sex worker, but as she is 25 now, I got past it. The film even has a little in-joke about her age, where 21-year old Vanya asks her age, and she says 23, and he says she looks 25. Madison carries the film with a lot of fiery energy, affecting a strong Brooklyn accent, and portrays Ani as both rough around the edges as a young woman and smart beyond her years. She made me think of Cardi B, with her charismatic personality as a stripper and deep outer borough accent.
With Sean Baker's films, it's a tricky balance between whether he wants to show marginalized characters with a respectful eye, but also coming in as a white, straight, cis-gendered man as an outsider, and possibly showing a stereotypical view. When I watched Tangerine, I could only watch half of it, and didn't know if the world of Black trans sex workers was being portrayed fairly through a white male director's eye. 2004's Take Out did have more of a documentary feel to it, as well as being an early film on a very low-budget, but as that also portrays the world of Chinese migrant delivery workers, I can't say whether Baker's film portrays them accurately. The Florida Project is one of his best films, with Willem Dafoe as the only well-known actor (aside from Caleb Landry Jones in a minor role), portraying children in low-income single mother families living in a motel just outside of Disney World in Orlando, FL, where the kids are messy and weird and annoying, but making the best of their living conditions in an unstable environment, and Dafoe as the motel manager looking out for them.
Anora won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and has gotten a lot of acclaim, especially for Madison's performance. I did enjoy the movie as a weird and messy ride, though I wouldn't think of it as one of my current favorites of the year, just as a good comedy with sad, downbeat moments placed throughout the film.
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