Anora

Ever since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, Anora has been compared to Pretty Woman.

It's a reductive comparison that highlights just how few films we have of sex workers, and how superficial our vocabulary is regarding them.

Yes, both films deal with a sex worker who gets hired by a wealthy man child and the resulting affair that follows. But look beyond the setup, and it's like comparing Titanic with Ghost Ship just because they both feature ill-destined boats.

Anora is the story of Ani, short for Anora, a sex worker in the boroughs of New York, who meets an obscenely wealthy oligarch called Vanya. He offers her $15,000 to spend the week with him, and their whirlwind affair roars to life with hedonism, sex, and childish debauchery. At the end of it, they elope to Vegas to get married.

But Vanya isn't his own man. He's a child playing with his parents' money, and they're not happy at the prospect of their son marrying a sex worker in a foreign country. Instead of a meet-cute, Ani comes face to face with a meet-hell as Vanya's family arrives to put a stop to their marriage.

From here, Anora moves unexpectedly, yet arrives at a place that feels like a logical conclusion. It rejects tropes, clichés, and easy answers. Everyone we encounter proves more complicated than initially expected. Like Ani, they're walking contradictions, each trapped in different states of delusion.

As Ani, Mikey Madison is a revelation. Her towering performance anchors the movie, and it's a fearless and honest act that makes the film. Ani feels real. She's chaotic, charming, unlikable, loving, harsh, and a dozen other things. Often all at once. Madison bravely holds nothing back.

At first, I wasn't sure if I cared what happened to Ani based off the first act. I didn't like anyone on-screen. As the film went on, I had to question my preconceived notions. I expected one thing and got something real and rough instead. Anora forced me to re-examine my own reality, and it's a richer experience for it.

Similarly impressive is Yura Borisov as Igor, one of the henchmen sent to handle Ani's and Vanya's dilemma. It's a more restrained performance compared to Madison's, yet no less moving. Igor is a man like Ani, trapped by his circumstances and looks to serve one purpose for those higher up in the food chain. He knows what he wants, yet is unable to vocalize that desire to anyone.

His first encounter with Ani is anything but fun. He has to keep her from leaving. To her, he's an intruder. A big, bald roughneck with a bad attitude. Everything she should fear. He tries to be kind in his own way, but there's no escaping the reality of the situation. No matter what he does, it's an invasion.

As the day turns into night, their relationship as victims of circumstance becomes the most interesting part of the film. Borisov and Madison have an easy chemistry about them, and they're equally magnetic in their own way.

Director Sean Baker doesn't rush his story. He doesn't need to. At first, I was uncertain of the way Anora unfolds. I've grown to expect a certain template to how these things go. Baker isn't interested in that. For him, the meat is in the little things. The mundane tasks, repetition, and frustrations. Our quarrels and bickering reveal as much about ourselves as giant declarations of love.

Baker's world feels lived-in and true. We don't visit any landmarks. Instead, Anora is at home on the streets, in the little bars and restaurants known only to those who live in the area. It has a familiarity to the downtrodden most films only pretend to achieve. A working class unity that permeates every frame.

Anora is a movie of beautiful heartbreak. It offers no fantasy or comfortable lies. But there is solace in its honesty and frustration. If it does share any DNA with fairytales, it's in the fable-like quality of its denouement, where it reminds us that help can come from unexpected places. And that, in the end, we're never truly alone.