By Matthew Moorcroft

Highest Recommendation

• Directed by Sean Baker
• Starring Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian
• R

Anora (or Ani, as everybody calls her) is a sex worker. A stripper specifically, though she isn’t opposed to some “side gigs” so to speak if it helps pays the bills. In one of the most electric needledrops of the year, which happens basically 5 seconds into the film, we see Anora’s nightlife through the eyes of the patrons. She’s great at her job, not just physically but also in terms of being amiable, a great listener, and genuinely seems to get along with the majority of her co-workers outside of a rival. But she’s more then just a pretty face, something the movie is keen to make sure you understand; she’s complicated, conflicted, and most of all, ambitious.

Sean Baker’s Anora is probably the closest thing to come out this year that’s a stone cold masterpiece off the bat. Constantly running the gambit between swooningly romantic, achingly painful, and morbidly (and deliriously) hilarious, Anora‘s entire structure plays on the transactional structure of sex and how we view relationships while also heading into a crescendo of madcap, slapstick antics. While you can see Anora as a screwball comedy at points, and that’s definitely the point, it’s probably closer to a neo-realist film in how much of it feels like Baker just took a camera and pointed it at real life, saying “go”. The actors don’t feel like actors, the direction is almost seamless, and the cinematography feels digital despite being shot – on Baker’s insistence – at 35mm.

Anora‘s emphasis on social realism in the wake of bizarre happening hinges entirely on it’s performances, something that lead actress Mikey Madison handles with ease. A star making turn, Madison lunges forward with reckless abandon and without fear, sarcastically remarking throughout the picture and maintaining a vibrant presence. It’s a tough role to pull off, as Anora herself is both an enigma to her patrons as well as herself, while also having such a outward facing persona that people automatically make assumptions, true or not. But the real strength of Madison’s performance is that she plays it like a starlet more then a realist; Anora feels like a role that a more wild, maybe modern Marilyn Monroe would have played. Just this time with a lot more sex.

In fact, the entire cast really helps elevate so much of this. An understated Yura Borisov is probably a clear standout to many – especially his final couple of scenes – but Karren Karagulian’s turn as an increasingly exasperated handler for our lead boy, Ivan, might one of the great comedic performances of the year. While Anora does start as a whirlwind romance between Anora and Ivan, it’s quite divulsion into “the worst day ever for these three guys” is partly due to Karagulian’s pitch perfect comedic timing and fantastic physical acting.

Don’t get me wrong here, Anora is hilarious. A 20 minute scene in the middle of this – which serves doubly as the genre change as well as the introduction of our three favorite henchmen – is the comedy highlight of the year; Uncut Gems if it was going for slapstick as opposed to pure anxiety. Baker’s direction is constantly understated but commanding at once, with a level of precision in his camera angles and placement that feels like this was the film was the one he has been building towards his entire career. And it kind of is as well, at least thematically; Anora is a culmination of all of Baker’s interests. Beyond the obvious – sex work, those in below the poverty line, the underprivileged, explorations of capital – there is something rather fascinating about how Baker treats sex. I mentioned before the film treats it as transactional, and that is true. Despite being from different social classes, both Anora and Ivan initially see their little escapades as nothing more then just a client and employee. But it’s the chance to escape into a life where a relationship doesn’t need to be a push and pull that keeps Anora drawn in and ultimately why she is convinced until the end that Ivan is there for her. Obviously he’s not just some rich asshole kid who got in way over his head and just wants a trophy wife to excuse himself from actually doing anything with life right? He’s different… right?

I don’t know if it was intended by Baker, as his work as always been mostly about simply observing rather then making statements, but Anora is one of the more scathing indictment of capitalism and the rich in recent memory just by virture of how it portrays the equally as complicated Ivan. In a sense, you actually pity the other half of this romance, even if Ivan likely never actually cared about Anora other then as a way to get back at parents he felt were overbearing. Ivan is a product of his environment just as much as Anora is, and they had enough chemistry at least to enjoy each other’s company for a little bit. Maybe if they had been similar social classes, or those classes didn’t exist, something real could have formed.

But they aren’t, and all Anora knows is the sad reality of being stuck in a situation that she seemingly can’t get out of. We don’t know why she is in her situation to begin with, but I don’t think that’s particularly important. You can infer enough, and by the end of the film as Anora returns to sex as transaction, it stops being joyous and sexy. It reads as hollow, her trying to find some solace in the only thing she seems to know how to do. The last 5 minutes of Anora are a devastating final note to leave on, leaving you shattered in the best way as you feel the loss of a dream in real time. It’s some of 2024’s most impactful character work and it’s done with as little as only a couple of words actually spoken.

And as the curtain closes on this chapter of Anora’s life, the audience is left pondering. There is a beauty in simplicity often of the time and Anora as a film relishes in it’s own simplicity and small, personal stakes. It’s as human as these stories can come, with all of the sadness, humor, joy, and heartbreak that comes with the simple act of falling in love. One of my favourites from 2024 and easily Baker’s best work yet.