'Anora' is very skilled at poor judgment
NEON
Even a fairy tale needs real feelings. A cautionary tale needs to earn its lessons. In “Anora,” a cross between a seedier “Pretty Woman” and a Safdie brothers descent into chaos and regret, the filmmaking is electric, and the story is almost entirely unplugged.
Twenty-three-year-old Anora (a strong but overhyped Mikey Madison) — who you best refer to as Ani — doesn’t go home to much in her small New York City apartment, but when working at Headquarters she seems to possess a power, or at least a fleeting control, that doesn’t exist outside the club. So when she meets Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn, a quality doofus), an obscenely wealthy, hard-partying 21-year-old vacationing from Russia, his delight in paying for her company for a week, including a whirlwind trip to Vegas, isn’t hard to accept. It’s not like she gets health insurance or a 401(k), she tells her boss, explaining that she’ll decide when she works, thanks very much.
The problem is that it never seems like Ani sees Ivan as anything other than an opportunity; he’s an entitled, video game-playing jackass who’s only loaded because of his powerful parents, and it’s hard to buy that Ivan and Ani’s relationship is built on anything other than dollar signs and sex (and that Ani speaks decent Russian). So when things suddenly get serious — quite clearly due to Ivan being spoiled and immature — and Ivan’s parents send a group of henchmen to intervene, what is meant to be taken from this beyond writer-director Sean Baker’s ability to turn a scene into a live wire of screaming outbursts and angry pursuits? Is anyone really feeling for Ani as a dream that was never founded on any information (these two know so, so little about each other) threatens to crash down before the marriage license ink can dry?
Baker has long been praised for his interest in people who live outside the usual margins of big-screen stories, particularly when it comes to sex workers, and the role money plays in lives and decisions. His previous effort, “Red Rocket,” was a fascinating exploration of selfishness while remaining remarkably likable. Yet like its titular character, “Anora” sacrifices insight for experience; it’s too busy punting to admit how transparent this all is, that not all rides are fun or even memorable. While there’s theoretical merit in refusing to spoon-feed viewers, we just don’t know enough about Ani, whether her past or her goals or even her opinions, to buy this as a character study of desperation or hope or naivete.
Instead there’s a highly telegraphed yet still-unconvincing supporting character added in as a supposed source of emotional generosity and support and a second half filled with very long action sequences where the story is supposed to go. No one can deny “Anora” has an aura, but just because Ani acknowledges loving Cinderella doesn’t make her the heir to, or a rewarding comment on, that stale narrative.
C
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