Ani (Mikey Madison), a young erotic dancer working at a club in Brooklyn, has her break cut short one night as a big spending client wants someone who he can speak to in his native tongue, Russian.  Dragging her feet at first, Ani comes to the table with a smile on to meet Ivan (Mark Eidelshtein), an excitable young man out to have a good time, no matter the cost.  Hitting it off, the two exchange numbers to meet outside of the club at Ivan’s mansion where he eventually reveals that he is the son of an Oligarch.  It does not take long before the pair decide to spend a week in Las Vegas, returning to Brooklyn as husband and wife.  The honeymoon phase is quickly over when news reaches Russia about Ivan’s new-found love and the family sets out to annul the marriage and clean the stain from their image. 

Sean Baker debuted his latest work, Anora, at the Cannes International Film Festival where it was acquired by Neon who continued their streak of distributing Palme d’Or winners for the fifth year in a row.  Baker, continuing his own examination of the dissolvement of the American Dream finds himself back in New York City for the first time since Prince of Broadway (2008).  His longest film to date, running 139 minutes, it is also his most formally audacious film, reteaming with Drew Daniels behind the camera who also lensed Red Rocket (2021), and Baker himself returning to the editing suite. 

The film is centered on its title heroine and Madison has quite the role to fill.  She is brash, loud, and ferocious; purposefully abrasive given her cutthroat line of work.  Madison has to walk a fine line as those qualities do not always translate well onto the screen as audiences tend not to like to be drawn into the chaotic orbit which these characters often cast.  To circumvent this, Baker gives Madison plenty of time for us to warm up to her.  We get to see her with her guard down and begin to learn about what actually drives her.  There is a phenomenal scene early on after Ivan proposes to Ani and we see her begin to weigh what he is offering, if he is actually offering it at all.  For audiences who do not feel a sense of elation when she finally agrees to marry her new beau, the remainder of the film may be a frustrating experience, but for those who can not help but smile at this flash of young love and a chance for Ani to set her life onto a new course will be in for a wild and unpredictable ride. 

After their fling in Vegas, the new couple returns to New York City to begin their life together.  Eidelshtein similarly has a difficult character, effusing manic energy while not getting on the nerves of audiences who may have little tolerance for his consequence-free lifestyle.  Ivan almost always has a puppy dog innocence about him so we almost feel a bit of awe-shucks pity for the boy against all of our better judgment.  It is an expertly laid trap by Baker who, through this characterization on the page and teasing this specific brand of manic performance out of Eidelshtein, has placed us squarely in Ani’s position and therefore forcing us into empathizing with her regardless of how our personal demographics match up to hers. Baker does however let the boy off easier than many of his other protagonists, almost trying to make us sympathize with him when his parents pull the golden spoon out of their baby’s mouth and he begins to cry. This is just one of many instances where Baker wraps his characters as if to try and soothe them in a way that seems rather unlike his other work. It is not so much to say that he is afraid to kill his darlings, but there seems to be something akin to brotherly protection at work here.

It is hard to say that the happy couple has fallen into a rhythm of everyday life in their first week as husband and wife, but whatever semblance of order they may have had is quickly turned on its head when Vlad (Nazar Khamis) and Igor (Yura Borisov) show up at the door at the behest of Toros (Karren Karagulian), the bulldog of the Zakharov family, seeking to bring Ivan and Ani to the courthouse to get their marriage annulled.  It starts out as a funny scene, Toros being interrupted during a baptism and then Eidelshtein really laying on that foppish charm as he frantically runs around the mansion in his boxers, but once he makes a run for the door and off of the estate, the scene takes a much darker turn, though it does not totally abandon its comic undertones.  What plays out is an extended hostage sequence as Toros and his goons panic at the terrible look of the scene of three grown men in a wrecked living room with a young woman bound by a telephone wire and gagged on a scarf.  It is a harrowing scene, even if it stays darkly comic, and it shows us flashes of Ani’s street smarts taking into account any sliver of a chance to gain an advantage over these men. 

This tips off into the extended second half of the second act as this motley crew scrambles across Long Island to find Ivan; an Odessey that stretches long into the evening conjuring up memories of Martin Scorsese‘s dusk-till-dawn romp, After Hours (1985).  Anora takes on a totally different flavor in Ivan’s absence and transporting Ani into this new environment, and while it is an enjoyable enough hang, Baker seems to run out of steam as the night wears on and on.  Slowly but surely, Baker is fostering a growing respect between Igor and Ani – something that will pay off later – but by and large, it feels like he is repeating himself as they scramble from one location to the next and as Toros desperately waves a thirst trap Instagram photo of Ivan’s demanding strangers tells him if they saw this boy.  It is funny at first, and it falls well into the pattern of Baker’s previous works that delve into frantic chaos as the dream begins to shatter, but it is lacking that same thesis statement that has propelled those same works.  Subbing out these antics for something more nuanced really does a disservice to Madison as it handicaps Ani morphing her into a more passive participant caught in the riptide and we do not get as vibrant a portrait of her as we would like.  She never loses the spark but is often not allowed in the ring to let us see her fight.

What makes Anora different from the rest of his resume is that the dream is not broken by a sudden jolt but rather, Baker hits snooze a few times to ease us into our disillusionment.  To cite another Scorsese film, this third act is emblematic of the much slower and more contemplative third act of The Irishman (2019).  Steady, it moves with the speed of molasses, but it is never not engaging.  It is like witnessing a disaster and being helpless to intervene.  With the arrival of Nikolai (Aleksey Serebryakov) and Galina Zakharov (Darya Ekamasova), the narrative tells us that we have entered into dangerous territory, but it ends up being all bark and no bite for us in the auditorium.  The events are certainly shattering, but we never feel the danger that we are supposed to because these events have been so clearly telegraphed since Toros and his thugs entered the scene over an hour before.  Baker does toy with our emotions, sometimes giving us a glimmer of hope, but we never doubt where this story is heading and so the – for lack of a better term – reveal of the Zakharov’s entering the fray is not the narrative weapon that Baker treats it as. 

Ultimately, though, Anora is Ani’s story and it ends in her control, even if it is the shattering revelation that she has no control in a situation where she is, paradoxically, the only person in control.  It is a theme that unites all of Baker’s protagonists, but he gets sidetracked and has a little too much fun this outing to deliver the same kind of thought-out thesis as he has in the past.  The film never quite capitalizes on the luxury of the rich, and while it is thankful that Baker did not choose to use some influencer to fill the role of Ivan as Ani’s key to success, he frustratingly hints at wanting to eviscerate the state of the immigration system given that Ani and Ivan are accused of partaking in a green card wedding but eventually shies at the opportunity to shine a light on how the laws do not apply the same way depending on your tax bracket.  While Anora may not be as thematically rich, it does not detract from just how fun and bubblegum-tragic the film is.  It is incredibly watchable given its subject matter and its runtime, and though it seems Baker is leaving a lot on the table, he delivers a thrilling and exciting film that captures our attention and refuses to let us look away.