Money and sex run amok in Anora, Sean Baker’s latest since Red Rocket and The Florida Project. Anora, better known as Ani (played by Mikey Madison), works at a strip club in New York when she meets Vanya (Mark Eidelstein), an unbeknownst to her barely twenty-something, also the son of a Russian oligarch. The two become inseparable and within a couple weeks, decide to get married in Las Vegas. What could possibly go wrong? Winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, Anora pushes the boundaries of restless comedy drama with its frenetic pacing and its all too believable cast as the chaos ensues.
Surrounded by men old enough to be her father in her place of work, encountering Vinya’s boyish charm and youthful attitude has Anora intrigued as the two playful banter between broken English and Russian. Within a few days, Anora has agreed to be Vinya’s girlfriend for the week in exchange for $15,000, a large transaction, albeit one she’s used to. By the end of the week, being labeled Vanya’s girlfriend isn’t quite enough as she finds out that he must return to Russia soon, lest he stay illegally in the states. Clearly the answer is to fly to Las Vegas and get married. As much as Baker’s cinematography and fly by the seat of their pants character interactions are initially endearing, the jig gets old pretty fast. Upon learning that their son has married a ‘prostitute’, Vanya’s parents are outraged and send a trio of thugs to enforce an annulment, stat. Spiraling into a much too lengthy physical altercation and screaming match, the film turns into a battle of Vanya’s men against the feisty Ani followed by an endless screwball search for Vanya after he abandons Ani and flees into New York City.
While Baker’s previous works had strong elements of seemingly unscripted dialogue and unbridled energy, Anora works like a disasterpiece of Safdie-Brothers infused madness. Scenes drag on far too long, the jokes become predictable, and it soon becomes hard to root for anyone, including Ani, after one too many poor choices keep presenting themselves. Grown professional men mirror actions more of infantile children, not to mention Vanya’s naïveté quickly growing stale and obnoxious. A game of cat and mouse on the streets and businesses of New York are excruciatingly repetitive, almost to the point where I was left wondering if Baker was forced to fill in a two hour and 19 minute runtime and was left empty-handed with ideas.
Baker’s trajectory and tone of the film dance from excessive glamor and glitz, generally succeeding in pulling in the audience in to this Cinderella romance, to exaggerated and foolish comedy, with a final attempt to imprint an arguably bleak message on the audience, but is left feeling out of place, or at the very least too little too late. Perhaps the tendency to set expectations high after hearing much praise about Anora is to be at fault, but frankly for all that Baker has accomplished with his previous films, Anora was an unfortunate exercise in frustration and intermittent boredom.
You can catch Anora in theaters at Austin Film Society, screening this evening though Thursday, November 21st. Purchase tickets here.
