Zany rom-com ‘Anora’ is a fractured Cinderella tale
After months of hearing effusive praise bestowed upon Sean Baker’s Cannes-winning “Anora,” I was excited to see what my peers had been raving about. Well, I finally got the chance and I was dumbstruck – and not in a good way. Given all the gratuitous nudity, the idiom “the lap dancer has no clothes” stuck in my craw. But the root of my disappointment was in knowing that I’d already seen this movie when it was titled “Emily the Criminal,” and possessed a heroine in Aubrey Plaza vastly superior to “Anora’s” Mikey Madison.
Before anyone starts screaming sacrilege, allow me to state my case as to why one easily tops the other. Let’s begin with the eerie similarities between Baker’s script and John Patton Ford’s depiction of a young woman so hopelessly ensconced in an unforgiving gig economy that the promise of sudden wealth easily seduces her. For Plaza’s Emily, it was orchestrating a credit card scam. For Madison’s Ani (short for Anora), it’s accepting an offer she can’t refuse while working in a high-end Manhattan strip club called Headquarters.
Both fall for handsome foreigners – Theo Rossi’s Yusef for Emily; Mark Eydelshteyn’s Vanya for Ani – promising paths to prosperity, albeit with loose ends posing certain dangers. And sure enough, they find themselves in over their heads with no discernible means of escape. Given their propensity for feral behavior, the women do what comes naturally, they fight back against the most imminent threat – powerful men.
Here’s how the two differ. Where Emily cleverly gets even using her brains and moxie, Ani attempts to overtake her antagonists by simply being annoying. And, boy, can Madison be annoying! Her Ani kicks, she screams and she spews profanity like nobody’s business. She doesn’t outsmart her enemies; she berates them into submission. Pleasant, she’s not. And it goes on for what seems like forever.
For this, Madison has emerged as a favorite to win a Best Actress Oscar. But why? Sure, like reigning Best Actress Emma Stone in “Poor Things,” Madison bravely delivers much of her portrayal sans clothes and in the throes of graphic sex. Unlike Stone, Madison hasn’t a clue about nuance and modulation. She’s the same throughout. There’s no arc, no growth. She’s just as feisty and ornery at the end as she was at the beginning.
Too bad, because “Anora” begins so well, with Ani being summoned by her overbearing boss to babysit Eydelshteyn’s Vanya, the brattish 21-year-old son of a Russian oligarch. He speaks a little bit of English and she speaks a little bit of Russian, most of it absorbed from being around her grandmother who emigrated to Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach. Their halting conversations are charming, even romantic, as they talk themselves into the sack.
The widely grinning Vanya is so taken aback by his new “toy,” that he offers her $10,000 to spend the week with him in his parents’ opulent mansion on Long Island. Before you can say “Pretty Woman” (Is there anything original in this film?), Ani is living a life of luxury. And the sex is fantastic. But as they say, all good things …
A drunken night on the town in Vegas lands them in one of those cheesy wedding chapels. They say, “I do.” But Vanya’s irked parents say, “Nyet.” Waiting to greet the newlyweds on their return to New York is Vanya’s godfather, Toros (Karren Karagulian), an Armenian priest charged with keeping the kid in line while Mommy and Daddy are back in the homeland counting their billions. He’s brought along his muscle, Garnyck (Vache Tovmasyan), and the even more imbecilic, Igor (Yura Borisov), to restore order. But Ani is having none of it. She’s hooked on wealth and isn’t about to cede it, even if it costs her everything.
The ensuing standoff exhausts much of the film’s midsection, and like the movie itself, goes on way too long. Baker thinks this collection of morons is spinning screwball comedy gold when in actuality they’re simply making your head twirl. Lost in the mayhem are observations Baker seeks to make about a lopsided economy that benefits crooks like Vanya’s parents at the expense of folks like Ani who must grovel and degrade themselves just to earn a dollar.
Again, these are issues “Emily the Criminal” explored with a lot more profundity and impact. “Emily” grabbed your attention and your empathy. “Anora” merely grasps the throat and throttles you until you cry, “Uncle.” Yes, bits of it are funny and swoon-worthy, especially when the couple travel to Vegas. But Baker can’t temper his worst instincts and indulges them before interjecting one last attempt at salvation via a twist you’ve seen coming forever.
Some say the finale is astute, even moving. I found it the work of a cynic with scant respect for his characters and their plights. Shocking given Baker’s track record with “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket,” all films involving sex workers in economic straits. With those movies, the compassion was inescapable. With “Anora,” it’s a lot less obvious. That’s a letdown because from what I’d heard, I was expecting so much more.
Movie review
Anora
Rated: R for graphic nudity, drug use, pervasive language, strong sexual content
Cast: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan
Director: Sean Baker
Writer: Sean Baker
Runtime: 138 minutes
Where: In theaters
Grade: B-
