What happens to Cinderella after she marries the prince? As a child, I was obsessed with this question. I watched the Disney cartoon almost daily, haunted by the movie’s final image of the newlyweds riding off in their carriage. Where were they going, I wondered, and what would they do when they got there?
“Anora,” the new Oscar-nominated film from the writer and director Sean Baker, answers this question—that is, if Cinderella were an exotic dancer and her prince the profligate son of a Russian oligarch. Many reviewers have compared “Anora” to a fairy tale: The handsome, wealthy man whisks the poor girl away to a life of splendor. But as in any fairy tale, things are not what they seem.
With glittering colors, neon lights and pulsing music (“Tonight could be the greatest night of our lives,” the soundtrack declares), the film’s opening shots suggest a glamorous, even exuberant life, albeit a chilly one. (Let the readers of this Catholic magazine understand that this R-rated film about a sex worker features exactly as much sex and nudity as you would expect.) Anora (Mikey Madison)—or Ani, as she insists on being called—has a working persona that is sweet, friendly and casual, as if what she’s being paid to do is not a big deal, as if she even enjoys it. And maybe she does: A former student of mine, once a teenage runaway, told me that working as a stripper gave her great confidence.
A brilliantly directed sequence, moving from the pulse and glow of the private rooms to Ani wandering the floor, trying to drum up customers, to the breakroom, where she eats leftovers out of Tupperware and kvetches with fellow dancers about their working conditions, reveals the drab realities of Ani’s life. The sequence ends with Ani taking the train home in the wee hours, wearing an enormous black coat and no makeup, her now-stringy hair escaping from a beanie.
This sudden contrast feels like the transition to Technicolor in “The Wizard of Oz” played in reverse: All the color and light suddenly drain away. Ani’s life may look glamorous, but the truth is that she works nights, makes little money and has a cranky roommate who chastises her for forgetting to pick up milk. Later, she sits in the shadow of an elevated train track, smoking a cigarette alone.
At its heart,“Anora” is a film about loneliness. The men who come to Ani’s club are in search of a particular kind of experience, yes, but they’re also on the hunt for connection. While Ani dances for them, her customers tell her about their jobs, their anxieties, even their families. There’s the loneliness of paying for company, and then there’s the loneliness of being paid company. Though she’s friends with her coworkers, Ani keeps everyone else at a necessary distance.
Until Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). He is also a customer, but their relationship is different from the start. They meet because he requests a dancer who speaks his native Russian (he, too, is looking for connection). At first, Ani refuses to speak Russian, saying she would happily listen to him instead (yet another one-sided relationship), but soon Ivan charms her into conversation. It’s clear that the spark between them could blossom into something more.
That spark only grows as the movie progresses. In a series of escalations, Ivan asks Ani for more and more, and she gives it to him willingly: visiting his enormous house, accepting an invitation to his party, agreeing to be exclusive with him for a week. In Ani’s eyes, it’s all good business, and she negotiates her fees accordingly. But thanks to Madison’s career-making performance, we know there is more going on. As they cavort through New York’s most glamorous corners (and in bed), it becomes clear that she is letting down her guard: We see it in her cautious looks, in her widening smile. Even when Ivan plays video games on the couch, Ani is content to snuggle peacefully into his chest, possibly falling in love. And who can blame her? Ivan is young and handsome and lives in a house the size of a Costco—and, for the most part, he treats her well.
When their week together ends with a spontaneous trip to Vegas, and an equally spontaneous marriage proposal, we want to believe Ivan’s intentions are good. He tells Ani being married would let him stay in the United States—but isn’t it possible that he cares for Ani, too?
Disney Dreams
For a moment, it certainly looks that way. Ivan buys Ani an enormous ring, weds her in a neon chapel and proudly declares to everyone on the Vegas strip that she’s his wife. Ani, too, glows with pleasure: She says a teary goodbye to her co-workers and talks about planning their honeymoon in Disney World, specifically at—where else?—Cinderella’s Castle, as she’s dreamed since she was a little girl.
If this were a romantic comedy, or the sort of fairy tale with a happy ending, “Anora” would end here. But it’s not. Like Stephen Sondheim’s subversive musical “Into the Woods,” it’s the kind of fairy tale where princes turn out to be ogres and ogres turn out to be, if not exactly princely, certainly more noble.
In this version of the fairy tale, the prince is the one who goes running off, and Cinderella has to find him. When Ivan’s parents hear about his marriage, they panic and send several employees (thugs? henchmen? it’s never quite clear) to bring the boy to his senses, and Ivan flees, leaving Ani to fend for herself. Though the ensuing melée is often comic, even screwball (it’s easy to imagine, say, Jimmy Stewart reluctantly chasing Katharine Hepburn around the house instead), it’s also deeply unsettling. Ani ends up bound and gagged on the couch, furious and terrified, and we don’t know just how far these men will go to do their job.
Mercifully, the henchmen seem more exasperated than evil. It’s clear they have had to clean up Ivan’s messes before. Though their leader, Toros (Karren Karagulian), makes it clear that he couldn’t care less for Ani’s welfare, his warnings about Ivan ring true. “You do not know this guy,” he says. “He’s a spoiled brat who doesn’t want to grow up.” Ani agrees to help them track down her husband, if only for her own safety, but it’s clear she doesn’t believe them. This tension is the film’s true strength: We want to believe Ani will get her happy ending, but we also suspect Toros might be right. After all, Ivan is the kind of guy who will marry a stripper to get a green card.
With Ani in tow, Toros and his two henchmen set off on a madcap hunt across New York, determined to find Ivan and undo the marriage. They comb through all the nightclubs and bars where Ani and Ivan splashed out the week before, now drab in the winter daylight. Even Coney Island looks gray and dreary with the neon lights off. It’s a dire situation, one that threatens to leave Ani considerably worse off than before.
As is often the case in fairy tales, help arrives from the unlikeliest of places: Toros’s quietest henchman, Igor (Yura Borisov). Though he and Ani got off to a rough start (she is—understandably—furious at him for tying her up), as the chase drags on through the night and Ani gets more exhausted, Igor looks out for her, offering her a drink when she’s upset, a scarf when she’s cold. He is the unexpected conscience of this film: His bewildered expressions as Ani’s lot goes from bad to worse mirror the viewer’s feelings. When Ivan’s family treats Ani contemptuously, Igor is the only person who stands up for her, insisting she is owed an apology. Ivan may have married her, but Igor seems to be the one who actually cares for her.
Don’t expect a tidy ending to this story. Ani’s been through too much for that. The movie ends not in a honeymoon-bound carriage, but in a parked car on a snowy street. When Igor does Ani a good deed—one that will change her life for the better—Ani starts to thank him with sex. There is absolutely nothing romantic about this scene. Their coupling initially seems like a transaction, as if Igor’s just another customer. But suddenly, Ani stops. She breaks down and sobs on Igor’s chest as the screen fades to black. It’s a brutal ending, one that resists easy reads—and one that both Madison and Baker have refused to discuss on the press circuit, preferring that viewers draw their own conclusions.
Where does this leave this reviewer? Two possibilities appear. If “Anora” is a movie about loneliness, perhaps Ani is left lonelier than ever, so broken by grief that she is unable to return to the compartmentalized life she had before (and, even worse, perhaps now unable to support herself).
On the other hand, it is possible that the ending of this film isn’t as bleak as it appears. Only in the film’s last moments does Ani finally get to share her full self. Until now, sex has been her job. Now it is something that leads her to unleash her grief, connecting deeply with another human being. And isn’t that what sex is all about?
Read next: America reviewed a range of films over the last year, including many of the awards-show contenders. Past reviews can be found here.
