Can movies act as our modern day fairytales? Director Sean Baker and lead actress Mikey Madison try to answer this question with their brand new film, Anora. Along with Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, Baker’s latest work got raucous applause at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Audience members even cheered during the film itself. The jury loved it so much that Anora won the Palme d’Or, the highest award at the festival.
The film depicts Madison as a young exotic dancer named Ani attempting to live out her dream in a marriage to Vanya Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch. Throughout painful yet comedic twists and turns, Ani desperately clings to the hope she can live out a Cinderella story in America.
Sure enough, Anora has become an awards darling and ranked near the top of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter’s lists for Best Picture winner. As of the end of November, Variety has the film just behind Wicked and Madison’s lead performance at the top. But does Anora merit the acclaim and potential awards fodder?
Mikey Madison’s performance deserves the hype
Madison immediately makes her presence known as a tour-de-force actor almost immediately in the title role. You can feel a clear immersion and interest on Madison’s part. She had to learn how to be a pole dancer while working on a separate project in Baltimore.
Her training totally paid off as Ani felt like the life of the party inside the strip club where she worked. Ani is quick-witted and commands the screen anytime she is on it, even as circumstances become troubling.
Once Vanya’s parents make their presence known in America, the spoiled rich kid flees, leaving Ani on her own with a group of the family’s hired goons. She has to reckon with how her supposed husband so quickly abandoned her. Madison perfectly displays an understanding of Ani’s inner workings and can make you honestly believe that dreams can come true.
Madison, who appeared in films like Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, deserves the accolades she could potentially receive.
What about Anora’s other performances?
Madison isn’t the only one that pops off in this film. Once the film takes on much more of a comedic turn in the second act, the supporting performers shine.
Yuriy Borisov, who plays Russian henchman Igor, becomes a surprise in the film’s latter half. He at first seems like a withering buffoon who can’t even intimidate Ani correctly. But when she becomes stuck with him as Vanya’s exploits and nature are revealed, Igor shows himself as a more caring person than first believed.
However, Igor is much more complex than just being a secret nice henchman. Borisov uses blank facial expressions to keep his motives hidden, making him a compelling figure to watch develop. On a side note, Eydelshteyn also plays brilliantly as the spoiled rich kid who, by the end of the movie, you want to punch in the face.
Sean Baker’s direction and writing may not be up to snuff
While there are performances that really stick out, the man behind the camera struggles to put coherent themes together. In his 2017 masterwork, The Florida Project, Baker showed an innate ability to portray people’s lives at the most basic level possible. He finds drama in cerebral, real-world dilemmas.
Anora, with its Cinderella-esque nature, is certainly at a different speed for Baker. While the movie can be jarring in that regard, the real issue lies in how Baker services the themes.
The movie depicts the lower classes having souls because they have responsibilities in life, and rich people don’t because they don’t need to care about anything. This mostly works in contrast to Ani’s hope for a fairytale life, but it falls short of being a defining work in a time when class divisions grow even larger.
Baker finds nothing more to say. That’s not to claim there isn’t credence to that statement. It’s just that you could find that in Succession or even Triangle of Sadness. The depressing ending Baker settles on lands on a blunt conclusion that doesn’t add much room for nuance or substance. The film truly never solves the question of movies-as-fairytale.
Does Anora belong in the Best Picture race?
Before Wicked blew people’s minds, Anora was at the top of the list for Variety’s Best Picture contenders. It’s exciting but not all that shocking. Films like Nomadland, CODA and Everything Everywhere All at Once won the ultimate award. This is the case even as they depicted people and cultures not traditionally shown on the silver screen.
Film studio NEON has won the Palme d’Or five Cannes Film Festivals in a row. More importantly, it has been reliable in getting its big movies nominated year after year. Three of the last four Palme d’Or winners have been nominated for Best Picture. But it was 2019’s Parasite that went on to become the first foreign language film to win it all.
According to Variety, the movie has “transcended the art-house niche” and gotten buzz from regular moviegoers. Look no further than Letterboxd changing its logo to the design of Anora’s film poster title design.
Safe to say there is an undeniable buzz and excitement around Baker’s film, but I’m not certain that it belongs as one of the 10 best movies of the year. 2023 had undeniable critical and commercial hits like Oppenheimer or Barbie. But there are films in 2024 that challenge how we look at cinema and the world. Films like I Saw the TV Glow, Nickel Boys and The Brutalist all make much more confident and coherent assertions about our current age. Additionally, they find new ways to mess with convention.
For all of its unpredictability, Anora can feel quite stale in comparison to some other great works from 2024.
Final thoughts
Anora certainly has its strengths, particularly Madison and Borisov’s performances. But I found that Baker aimed too high in trying to connect love and class together and fell markedly short. Still, that shouldn’t stop Madison from getting her flowers for putting together a visceral and locked-in portrait of this exotic dancer.
At least according to current Oscars projections from the trades, Anora and Madison will be a contender to take home the golden trophy this upcoming March. I certainly didn’t have the best experience with Anora and think it might be slightly overrated, but that shouldn’t stop you from witnessing this film.
