Anora Review

dir by Sean Baker

Sean Baker’s Anora is a testament to the ability of a filmmaking team to produce a moving piece of cinema, both stylistically and thematically, with a low budget; the film was made with a mere $6 million dollars. To get a sense of how this financing compares to other recent blockbuster films, one can look to the budget of Dune: Part Two (2024), which was made with $190 million, or Wicked (also 2024) which was made with $150 million.

In an interview with cinematographer Drew Daniels of Anora after the film’s release, Daniels speaks to the realism behind filming a major picture, which encompasses the fact that limitations are often what dictate a lot of creative and stylistic choices when working within the cinematic medium. But, alongside this sweeping claim, he appeals to the powerful way himself, Baker, and the rest of the production team were able to subvert these supposed limitations when making Anora, and avoid the final product from appearing as “a low budget film.” The team did this by exacting strong discernment when it came to knowing where to put the money that the producers raised, and managing it well. Anora proves that, though the financing of a film generally limits creative and stylistic expression, the successful delivery of a film’s concept and story is more important than the newest and most cutting-edge technology, film equipment, and all the other features that production money can bring to bear on a film’s delivery. I learned in my research after viewing the film that the location where much of the film was shot – a contemporary mansion in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn (which also happens to be known as “Little Odessa” due to its tight-knit Russian and Eastern European communities) – the director found online during the pandemic when a former owner (coincidentally a real-life Russian oligarch) happened to be listing the place. Baker used the pictures of the place from Google Images to block many scenes in the screenplay. The success of Anora at the 2025 Academy Awards, as an emblem of the extent to which film financing can go, comes as a reprieve to artists globally who may be encouraged and inspired by its example.

Stylistically, Daniels says that the independent style of Anora hearkens to the bold and intrepid Hollywood of the ‘70s. He locates a strong example, or paradigm of this style, in Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (1970). While not a visual spectacle, or overtly concerned with eye-catching camera or stagecraft, there are a few stunning frames and visual flourishes. The choice by the costume designer of the red, glittering fairy strands against Mikey Madison’s ebony hair, which glamorously and gloriously reflect the strobe lights throughout the night life scenes, was spot on. The plot and dialogue of the film is ostensibly simple. The script, which embodies a comedy of errors of sorts, reminded me in large part of the schema in the original play from which the idiom takes its phrase: the Bard’s The Comedy of Errors (1623). Like Anora, the blatant farcical aspect of the Shakespeare play provides the skeleton, but as is the case with any good work of art, upon a closer and deeper reflection, the sensitive viewer begins to see the emergence of a satellite of nuance. The farcical plot of Anora is a whirlwind marriage doomed by both class and cultural conflict, and this already comical setup is exacerbated further by the way that the protagonists each approach the constraints of this dubious union to its extreme ends: Anora, or “Ani” as she is called by her coworkers and friends, is an escort at a high-end strip club in New York City, and Ivan, or “Vanya” as his friends call him in endearment, is the philandering son of a rich Russian oligarch, who frequents such places. There is something interesting that happens, though, by way of the ridiculous series of events that ensues after the two marry in the Little White Chapel in Vegas: a kind of equalizing force takes over the narrative, as the oppositional absurdity of the marriage on the one hand and Vanya’s family’s extreme reaction to it (of course, they do not approve when word reaches Russia) seem to cancel each other out, which produces not an anesthetic effect -because I find that the viewer still can and should sympathize with both sides of the confusion - but instead this dynamic moves the import of the action from an emotional register, and in doing so, makes space for the possibility of objectivity to transpire. While viewers still care about the characters, we do become less emotionally involved with them and their respective relationships: Vanya and Ani, Vanya and his overbearing mother, the relationship that occurs between Ani and Vanya’s mother, etc. At the same time that this is happening, the question of what this film is really about materializes, if not for the drama of either side of this ridiculous equation.

To me, this film is really about Ani, it is her story, and too, why the film is named after her – it is a story of what happens when a girl, already exploited by a patriarchal system, gets caught in the crossfire of the spoils of such a system that is isolated and on steroids, which comes in the form of her engagement with Ivan. Though a male director, I was shockingly surprised by Baker’s sensitivity to telling the truth of Ani’s experience throughout the film. While he demonstrates his deep perception of what a truthful depiction of Anora’s experience would be like if it were “real life” consistently over the course of the entire film, I found his exploration of the flimsy and fickle boundary between male tenderness and violence the most compelling note of this authentic depiction.

For instance, in what I will coin the “scarf scene,” one of the security guards (sent by Vanya’s parents back home in Russia to the estate in New York, in order to annul the marriage) uses a scarf in the house, which ironically belongs to Vanya’s mother, in order to restrain Ani when she begins to scream as the guards rip the wedding ring off of her finger. Later on, when the search group which includes Ani (they are looking for Vanya who has fled the scene, as they need his presence to perform any kind of annulment) are on a boardwalk, and it is freezing out, one of the guards, Igor, pulls out this very same scarf and asks Ani whether she would like it to keep her warm. She says to him: “Why did you f***ing bring that? So you could strangle me again?” Her face here is shot with a look of disgust, and she is filmed from the front (the camera moves from something like a horizontal tracking shot to capturing the movement from the front.) The security guard, hooded, looks rather suspicious, as he doesn’t respond to her initial question, and his visage is blacked out from the angle of the lighting. In the awkward, tense, and suspenseful pause that ensues, Ani begins to walk faster with a quickened and uneasy pace, when suddenly, she turns around and exclaims to the guard Igor, “F*** it, give me the scarf!”This brief scene is charged with both Igor’s tenderness and concern for Ani, but also laced with the energetic residue of the previous scene’s aggression towards her. Baker captures this tension vividly and in a way that a play or a script on its own could not convey with such pointedness.

Anora is funny; it is surely a comedy, and although one of errors, its humor isn’t at all slapstick or sentimental, which speaks to the film’s appeal to younger, Gen Z audiences. A good illustration of the film’s dry and assertive, albeit winsome sense of humor comes in an exchange at the end of the film between Igor and Ani. Igor, the security guard, appears to have developed a bit of a crush on Ani: He tells her that he likes her full name “Anora” better than Ani. Then, he proceeds to proclaim that his own name “Igor” means “warrior,” a claim which Ani does not indulge. She replies: “The name Igor means ‘the hunchback weirdo’ you f***ing piece of shit, can you shut the f*** up please?” Igor responds to her with a simple: “Touché.” However, he mispronounces the French word, missing the accent, and just says “Toosh.”

My favorite part of the film is the avant-garde ending; I wasn’t really sold on the film or its Best Picture status until the very end. I will just say that the film ends with Anora crying over Igor in a lap-dance-like posture. It’s unusual, it’s totally experimental, it’s daring, and if anyone wants to discuss my thoughts further on this one I’m happy to take it off the page…

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