“Anora” loses itself in its own excess

Sometimes, Anora seems like a film designed to attract online audiences, much like Charli XCX's brator Greta Gerwigs Barbieor the Safdies' Unpolished gemstones Everyone did it. It includes all the popular thematic elements of social media: sex work, wealth and excess, class comments, hot people, “bisexual lighting,” Tumblr bait pictures. It's hard not to feel a little cynical when a film plays the hits so readily and gleefully, although perhaps that's the point – the cheese of the late Millennials/Gen Z to lure in that audience and draw them into its fable about the Limits of transactional events include fantasies.

The latest film from Sean Baker, director of films like The Florida Project, Tangerine, And Red rocket, Anora could be seen as the culmination of his artistic work on sex work, class struggle and the dangers of late capitalism. Mikey Madison plays the titular Anora, a 21st century Cinderella who lives as a sex worker in Brooklyn. One day, Vanya Zakharov (Mark Eidelstein), a 23-year-old deputy to Timothée Chalamet who might as well be 15, walks into her strip club. Vanya, the son of a Russian oligarch, has a dirty date with Anora as she is the only stripper there who speaks Russian. He quickly takes a liking to Anora and begins asking her for time away from the club. So begins their working relationship, in which Vanya ends up paying her to have sex with him in his mansion and play video games, to have exclusive time with him, and – in the film's biggest set piece – to be his weekend girlfriend, like him and his friends wishing for a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas, complete with private jets, swimming pools in the deluxe suite, drugs and alcohol at the ready, and expensive shopping trips.

The whirlwind “romance” is shot like a Hype Williams video, full of sweeping camera shots and a roving eye that takes in all the thrills that unlimited money can bring. So much so that it sometimes seems as if the audience should be even more involved in the action than in “Anora”. She never seems to forget that she's on the clock, at least until Vanya makes the obviously ill-conceived decision to ask Anora to marry him, ostensibly so he can stay in the States and not have to return to Russia. But he convinces her that he is serious, and she is enticed, not only by his apparent seriousness, but probably by the last 48 hours they have lived together The Wolf of Wall Street.

This is where the film becomes much sparser. Not just because the second half is like the crash after an intense drug binge, in which Vanya's carers/babysitters find out about the marriage and arrive in New York to force an annulment. Not just because the film sometimes remains too similar to other films Blow drunk love And Unpolished gemstones. What's most flimsy is that in order for this transactional fantasy to carry the necessary weight for her chicanery in the second half, you have to assume on some level that these two people have some kind of real connection, even if it's just a deep one Understanding their roles and loyalty to each other. Madison plays Anora with conviction, charisma and skill, but to such an extent that you can't really believe she would be captivated by a man-child like Vanya who acts like someone who never had to grow up. He is irritable, flighty, constantly drunk and high, easily distracted and unwilling to engage in confrontation. The only real argument for why Anora is so committed to the marriage plan is that it is her only chance to escape poverty.

In the second half of the film, when Vanya's handlers arrive and he escapes, essentially leaving Anora as their prisoner while they spend the rest of the film trying to find him and annul the marriage, Anora holds on to the belief that she can make his family like her. or at least that Vanya remains loyal to her union. But there is literally nothing that can convince you that this could happen except a blind hope. And “blindly hopeful” seems like the exact opposite of how Madison plays the character. The resulting dissonance clouds what should be devastating and undermines what should be exhilarating.

Despite it, Anora is a lot of fun. Even in the second half, the darkness of the comedy becomes as exciting as its suspenseful richness. The actors – many of whom are discoveries at which Baker excels – are truly captivating presences on screen. In particular, the character Igor (Yuriy Borisov) and his dynamic with Anora during her wanderings around the city looking for Vanya.

If anyone here seems to be fascinated by Vanya's decadent lifestyle to the point of pointlessness, it's ultimately the film itself that's holding them back. Baker might argue that the obvious pleasure the camera feels in indulging in the wealth porn is necessary for the gut-punch of the second half to arrive, an ultimate statement of what it really means to live in such a transactional society. Maybe that's true, but it feels that way Anora lost himself in his own fantasy without ever fully recovering from it.