ANORA: a triumph, or just the return of T&A?

Sean Baker’s latest film took both Cannes and the critics by storm, but is it a real future classic, or a case of the Empress’s new clothes?

Anora answers that question literally in its first moments. The Empress is pretty much naked. Opening in the strip club where its heroine Ani (Mikey Madison) works, there’s not much in the way of female clothing on show. A soundtrack of a Take That song does add an amusing counterpoint; the sensible tones of Gary Barlow were never meant to be the backdrop for dimly-lit crotch grinding and hair-flicking.

There’s a good chunk of this before the film’s gritty-Pretty-Woman, postmodern Cinderella storyline kicks in: there’s a customer who wants a girl who can speak Russian, which Ani can. More grinding and a private housecall later, we discover that the Russian customer is Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), a young oligarch’s son let loose in New York.

At this point, the storyline switches to a sleazy iteration of an early-2000s teen comedy, all parties, adventures at fairgrounds and candy store escapades, just with way more coke and sex on show. This culminates in Ani, Ivan and their friends decamping to Vegas, where Ivan impulsively asks Ani to marry him.

Ivan’s as-yet unseen family are utterly furious and seek to end the union, unleashing the second act. Led by a corrupt Russian Orthodox cleric who is Ivan’s godfather, a trio of goons accost the couple at Ivan’s place. He disappears and a comedy road trip ensues as the goons and Ani try to find him.

The crime-caper road-movie scenes are the best part of the script, conducted in contradictory English, Russian and Armenian as the characters squabble, scrap and waste time among NYC’s Russian district. Previous Baker collaborator Karren Karagulian takes charge as Toros, the godfather, assisted by the accident-prone and dramatic Garnick, played by Vache Tovmasyan, and the more circumspect Igor (Yura Borisov), who becomes strangely drawn to Ani. The comic timing from the four actors is great as they trade wisecracks and blows and give us a glimpse into the world of former Soviet emigres in the States.

The laughs are there and the middle act is nicely paced, but this is where the script starts to fall down. We’re given tiny hints about the characters’ world, but they are left unexplored. When the unlikely gang find Ivan and the inevitable showdown with his family happens, Ani doesn’t get the big Cinderella happy ending that we have a vain hope might still result. We’ve seen almost every inch of Ani’s body during the course of two hours plus, yet we know little to nothing about her as a person. What does she want? Where did she come from and how did she end up where she is?

It could be argued that she’s just meant to be a free spirit, living entirely in the moment, but it still leaves her curiously one-dimensional. All of the tiny hints we get of possible previous hurt, and fear behind her bravado and strong sense of self-preservation come from Madison herself, who gives the spiky and pragmatic Ani some tellingly vulnerable body language when she’s not dancing. She carries the film, appearing in almost all scenes and doing her absolute best to allow the audience to empathise with her character, even though we have so little to go on.

Edelshteyn also does a good job at giving the spoilt, childlike and ultimately spineless Ivan an endearing, whimsical side, although it’s never on show for very long. His character also suffers from a lack of clear backstory. At some points, it’s implied that he’s underage or cognitively incompetent, but this is never followed up either. He learns nothing and shows no character development of any kind, although there’s also little development in Ani’s character either. There’s no redemption arc and no-one leaves the story stronger or wiser, although we do get an ambiguous glimpse of a new side to Ani in an unexpectedly moving final scene, which I’ll let you discover for yourself. It involves Igor, in a standout performance from Borisov that owes everything to gesture and expression and little to dialogue.

Baker has made a name for himself highlighting marginalised people in his stories, in this case a sex worker from an immigrant background. However, the lack of character depth and liberal use of strip-club scenes makes Ani feel like the object rather than the active subject. A long-time sex industry supporter, Baker would doubtless see this criticism as prudish old-lady feminism in action, but his own postmodern dogma of relentless, unquestioning sex positivity has led to a rather flat and cartoonish depiction of the people he claims to be celebrating. That goes for Ani and for the under-used other stripper characters, who are only allowed a setpiece or two each. The other marginalised characters, like Ivan’s put-upon housekeeper Klara, are ignored entirely. Even the growing understanding between Ani and Igor is mostly shown through his reactions, rather than hers.

Anora is funny, but it’s a real throwback to male-gaze cinema, to unnecessary shower scenes and happy-go-lucky tarts-with-hearts jumping into bed with every man they meet. With some judicious editing, the missing-Ivan and disapproving parents caper could have made a great knockabout comedy on its own. As it stands, it’s too long and there’s not enough depth to the characters for the relentless raunch to matter.