Movie Review: Anora (2024)
If you want to get your heart broken - watch Anora.
Dear Reader,
Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic, maybe I’ve been influenced by stories like Pretty Woman. Maybe I still naively believe that the right man exists somewhere and will eventually come and save me like a knight in shining armor.
Anora convinced me with its movie poster and font: "romantic comedy" was the label I read next. Intriguing, I thought. I avoid trailers because, unfortunately, the art of trailer editing has morphed into "summarizing-the-movie-and-showing-all-the-best scenes-in-2-minutes." I get it; in this day and age, everyone’s vying for box-office success. But what happened to intrigue? So, here’s my advice: don’t watch the trailer – although I’ll link it here for those who must know everything beforehand.
The story follows Ani, a 23-year-old stripper working at a gentlemen’s club in Brooklyn, who falls in love with the son of a Russian oligarch. The film is marketed as a romantic comedy, and while I found it romantic, I frankly did not find it funny like that. Yes, the movie has some funny scenes, but not once have I had the urge to laugh out loud. There’s plenty of nudity and explicit scenes, so I’m glad I didn’t see it with my mom – she would’ve hated it. Normally, I critique sex scenes, but here they felt necessary for the third-act climax. The setup felt realistic but fell into some clichés: you can tell it was written and directed by a white man (what a surprise hehe).
I did find it odd that Ani was meant to speak Russian, yet barely does – though she seems to understand everything perfectly (she does mention her grandmother never learned English). From the start, the dialogue is engaging, but as a Brooklyn native, I felt her accent was slightly off. If you’re not from here, though, you probably wouldn’t notice.
I won’t delve too deeply into the plot because I hate spoilers, and you could easily read a summary on Wikipedia or just watch the trailer. The story has a classic three-act structure; the ending might surprise some, but I kind of saw it coming. As a woman, I understood her reaction in the end – no words left, just overwhelmed by all that had happened in two turbulent weeks, leaving her exactly where it all started.
Watching sex workers’ stories told by male auteurs has always felt a bit off to me. Director Sean Baker has openly supported decriminalizing sex work, and his films often center on sex workers as a way to destigmatize. However, the discourse around sex work is much more complex, but we won’t dive into that here.
I do wonder: do we need men like Sean Baker to tell these stories, or are we missing out on voices from people who have lived experiences like Ani’s and could tell it from a fresh, authentic angle?
Cinematography-wise, the "male gaze" is unmistakable throughout, which can be tiring. Haven’t we seen enough of this? Is there no other way to depict a sex worker’s life without the constant over-sexualization of female bodies? What would Anora look like if it were written and directed by a woman with that background? I believe we’d have a completely different, equally compelling piece of art. This doesn’t diminish Sean Baker’s work – it just calls for more critical consideration of who tells these stories. Some people out there have lived these experiences and maybe, just maybe, can portray them without fetishizing the women who do sex work.
Overall, the film is worth a watch there’s a reason it has gotten 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. It tells a thoughtful story with strong emotions and dialogue and plenty of Russian slang (I have the word “blyad” stuck in my head now) plus I always enjoy a movie, set in New York. Some of the sex scenes were longer than I’d have preferred, and there’s an unsettling fear factor that Ani mentions at the end, which lingered with me from the turning point onward.
Romantic? Yes. Comedy? I’d rather not call it that, but it was an emotional rollercoaster and it felt like a fever dream when I exited the cinema.
Did I have to cry? Yes, in the very end. Give it a go and you’ll find out why.
Until next time,
Jocelyne