Ano­ra – first-look review

Sean Bak­er returns to famil­iar pre­oc­cu­pa­tions with Ano­ra – sex work, grifters and the promise of a big break that isn’t what it seems. Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of an anti­hero as well-round­ed as Mikey Saber, Red Rock­et​’s washed-up porn star, Anora’s epony­mous exot­ic dancer lands as sketched in a more super­fi­cial mode, through no fault of a spir­it­ed and cap­ti­vat­ing per­for­mance from Mikey Madison.

Ano­ra (pre­ferred name ​‘Ani’) dances at Head­quar­ters, hus­tling against rival dancers like Dia­mond, for drinks and pri­vate dances. One night. Ivan ​“Vanya” (Mark Eydelshteyn) shows up and requests a Russ­ian-speak­ing dancer. He is the 21-year-old play­boy son of a Russ­ian bil­lion­aire, as gen­er­ous with his tips as his infec­tious good-time par­ty ener­gy. For him, Ani will do some­thing she prefers not to: speak in Russ­ian. He takes a shine to her and she is more than hap­py to take on ever more inti­mate jobs – rak­ing it in exchange for brief, excitable sex in his par­ents’ luxe home, nestling in his arms when he imme­di­ate­ly plays video games after­wards, like the large child that he is.

The chem­istry between Madi­son and Eydelshteyn is thrilling and endear­ing in equal mea­sure. The pow­er divide of their sta­tus is writ large from the begin­ning, but he so guile­less­ly wor­ships her that it’s almost pos­si­ble to for­get about that, at least for the dura­tion of a quick cli­max. ​“This is genius!” he says, slack-jawed after a par­tic­u­lar­ly ener­getic dance. Soon she’s attend­ing his par­ties, tak­ing a pri­vate jet to Las Vegas and being his ​“horny girl­friend” for a week for a $15,000 pay­day. We know that the oth­er shoe must drop at some point, but Bak­er spins out the excite­ment of this glit­ter­ing world that has unfurled itself before Ani. The club scene of after-hours Queens is shot with the awe of Dis­ney­world in The Flori­da Project and Ivan’s entourage are just excit­ed kids – high on coke rather than sug­ar – with no tab to pick up.

Then, Ivan push­es things too far and some des­ig­nat­ed adults show up. In lieu of his par­ents, who are sched­uled to arrive from Moscow the next day, three Armen­ian asso­ciates in the fam­i­ly employ are deputised to stage an emer­gency inter­ven­tion. One of them, a part-time priest, even runs out on a Bap­tism to rep­ri­mand Ivan. Famil­iar with the music that he doesn’t want to face, Ivan runs out of Ani, leav­ing her a hostage of these men.

The dynam­ic between the quar­tet bounces between action-movie vio­lence and com­e­dy-of-man­ners politesse, as Ani fights tooth and nail for her free­dom and the men apol­o­gise for the meth­ods they use to inhib­it it. The sec­ond act, in which they search a city for Ivan, need­ing to find him before his par­ents arrive the next day, calls to mind a more off­beat and loose Uncut Gems.

Bak­er affords space to peo­ple who are gen­er­al­ly stock char­ac­ters – the heav­ies and the strip­per – let­ting the actors flex the charm­ing lit­tle eccen­tric­i­ties that make them human. What binds the four togeth­er is that they are all the vic­tims of rich people’s bull­shit. While he has always dis­played a dark­ly com­ic eye, this is the first time that Bak­er has gone for broad punch­lines, there is even a vom­it moment played for laughs. These gags take place in anoth­er reg­is­ter to Madison’s full-throt­tled per­for­mance of a young woman on the emo­tion­al roller­coast­er ride of her life.

While the film remains enter­tain­ing thanks to the cal­i­bre of the per­for­mances, there are few sur­pris­es in store and not many places for Ani’s char­ac­ter to go. The film tries to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly define her by her sex appeal and sub­vert this for Madison’s per­for­mance is shad­ed by care­ful­ly craft­ed lay­ers of sex­u­al per­son­i­fi­ca­tion. She embod­ies it dif­fer­ent­ly when it is work, when she likes some­one and when she is using it with­in a mad­den­ing sit­u­a­tion to empow­er her­self. This per­for­mance is not sup­port­ed by the script which does not afford her char­ac­ter the same chances to be despi­ca­ble as it did Mikey Saber in Red Rock­et. The oppor­tunism of her attach­ment to Ivan is under-explored and instead, her affec­tion for him is played up. As such, she remains a riff on a famil­iar trope, rather than a tru­ly mem­o­rable char­ac­ter. A daz­zling first act grad­u­al­ly los­es its fresh­ness, like last night’s mascara.