Director Sean Baker, known for past releases such as ‘Project Florida’ and ‘Red Rocket’ has been recently the big talk as awards season is going on and has received critical and audience support alike with his new film ‘Anora’, a story of love and disappointment between a sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarchy, with a much more comedy dominated scenes at the start and middle, and finishing with a more emotional tone towards the end of the film.
With the introduction of a sex worker as the main character and the addition of how many people in this work are largely judged and prejudiced, it was quite important for the director to be able to reflect real human beings and a real story. Making sure to create a connection between the audience and the characters as much as any other movie should.
What I believe is the film’s biggest issue is especially related to this, as our main character Anora seems to have no background, goals, or interests. Even though the film makes us understand that she believes this relationship to be the most important event of her life, she is completely indulged in it and blindly follows Vanya Zakharov, living a luxurious life and jumping from party to party and drug to drug.
An argument can be created about how films don’t have to show us explicit intentions and that it can dumb down the film itself and treat the audience as kids that need to be handheld towards the story, but I believe that this argument does not apply to Anora as it does not allow us to even build a connection with her and even though the ending still packed a punch on my heartstrings, it could have been a lot better if the duration of the film was distributed better.
The storytelling also lacks in the way in which the character of Anora works, trying to construct a strong woman lead in what seems to be thin lines of information just to end up with most of the dialogue feeling almost out of character. We can draw conclusions on why she has done this or that, why she has fallen in love so hard with Vanya, or why she is fighting with her sister, but it’s something that we are simply not delivered. Finally, the sexualization of Anora and the way the film records her body, in addition to everything else, can lead to the thought of not caring about the actual character or even the actress, Mikey Madison.
Another aspect I find myself divided into is the comedy of the film. The film includes so many jokes about sexual assault and even though not trying to play it lightly, can still seem a bit out of touch or just completely out of place with the route the movie is in. How the jokes are handled conjoined with the complete overshadow that the male characters, such as Igor and Toros which are the two in charge of taking care of Vanya, do to Anora. This left a bad taste in my mouth, and I could not stop wondering what the actual perspective of this film is and what we are trying to evoke.
To conclude, Anora is a film that even though awarded and received positively by critics and audiences, can’t seem to get a hold of its plot and characters, and ends up lost on its story and perception of the message it’s trying to deliver. Making a statement about sex work and how it can affect lives is important, but it should not be reflected in a film that sexualizes the main female lead without proper background and development, as well as not understanding its tone.
