Aahana Swrup
Sean Baker’s ‘Anora’ is an exceptional romantic comedy film that brings a unique take on an otherwise classic Cinderella story. It follows the titular character, Anora “Ani” Mikheeva, a young escort and occasional sex worker who stumbles into a whirlwind romance after her path crosses with Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov, the son of a Russian oligarch. Moved forward by their profound connection, the pair find themselves impulsively tying the knot, hurling at full speed into a married life. Nonetheless, their fairytale romance meets a bump in the road once the news of their marriage reaches Vanya’s parents.
As a result, the Zakharov family’s trusted handler, Toros, arrives on the young couple’s doorstep to force them into an annulment. The film presents a compelling dive into the reality of the protagonist’s seemingly magical romance. In tune with Baker’s previous projects, it offers an authentic look into an otherwise overlooked community and crafts a thrilling narrative that is coated in syrupy realism. For the same reason, the origins of Ani’s impressively grounded story remain intriguing.
Anora: A Tale Stemmed From Sean Baker’s Fascination With Brighton Beach
The storyline of ‘Anora’ isn’t based on real-life people or events and is primarily a work of fiction penned by Sean Baker. Even so, the film retains a rich origin story. Baker and Karren Karagulian, who plays the role of Toros, have been longtime creative collaborators and friends. As such, through their friendship, the director developed an interest in Brighton Beach’s Russian-Armenian community. Consequently, he has had the idea to tell a story revolving around the location for some time. He reportedly wrote a script for it in 2008 with Karagulian as his co-writer. However, the idea never fully took off.
As the years passed, Baker lost his creative appetite for a gangster film. Still, his fascination with the New York neighborhood remained. Therefore, he picked up the idea again when he heard of a story about a woman who got kidnapped by the Russian-American gang who held her as collateral after her husband’s stint with them. From there, the idea for ‘Anora’ bloomed as Baker pitched a story about a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch and gets in trouble with the wrong crowd. As the filmmaker went forward with the story, he made sure to draw up an authentic image of the Russian/Armenian-American community, allowing him to craft a realistic world around the central narrative.
Anora Explores the World of Sex Work With Authenticity and Emotional Depth
While the Russian-American setting of ‘Anora’ is an intrinsic part of the film, a more notable aspect of the titular character’s journey remains her professional identity as a sex worker. The way the story frames Ani’s unconventional fairytale love story relies on the distinction between her background as a stripper at a gentlemen’s club and Ivan’s position, coming from an affluent, powerful family. It informs the themes of class disparity and power imbalance that are crucial to the conclusion of the protagonist’s tale.
With titles like ‘Tangerine,’ ‘Red Rocket,’ and more under his belt, Sean Baker has established a name for himself in the niche of authentic storytelling regarding central characters involved in the sex work industry. This project is no different. For ‘Anora,’ the filmmaker employed Andrea Werhun, author of the 2020 memoir ‘Modern Whore,’ as a consultant. Despite Baker’s intentions of highlighting the sex work community in his films, he recognizes his lack of life experience within the realm. For the same reason, while working on this film, he understood the importance of communicating with someone who has been a part of the community. Thus, his collaboration with Werhun came to be.
Likewise, Baker also immersed himself in the reality and history of clubs similar to Ani’s place of employment. He was inspired by the concept of “Dime a Dance,” a kind of service that existed around World War I. During that time, soldiers would pay women a dime to have one dance with them. The filmmaker equated this service to the modern reality of lap dance/strip clubs. In particular, he was fascinated by its calculated transactional property, wherein dancers would have to figure out their clients in a matter of seconds to appeal their performances to the other’s preferences. Therefore, he wanted to replicate the same on-screen authentically through Ani’s character.
Baker and Mikey Madison Conferred With Professionals to Craft Ani’s Character
For Ani’s central character, Sean Baker wanted to infuse her storyline with a sense of realism. For the same reason, he encouraged Mikey Madison (who plays Ani in the film) to consult with and shadow professionals to understand the industry’s psychology better. Additionally, he also hired consultants to provide their expertise during relevant sequences. As such, Baker maintains his refreshingly authentic approach to the portrayal of sex work in Ani’s story, which informs an instrumental foundation of her character. In a conversation with The Verge, the director discussed the significance of highlighting the stories of the sex work community, especially in the face of under or misrepresentation in other media.
“It has become a conscious decision of mine with each film, more so really to tell a universal story with a fully fleshed out, three-dimensional character, who is a sex worker, in order to just sort of— I wouldn’t say normalize, but there it is, I guess,” said Baker. “My subversive tactic here is to really get audiences to think of sex work in a different way, to help for those who do see it with that eye of stigma, to chip away at that.” In undertaking this intentional objective with the film, the director referred to many other pieces of media for inspiration. The 1957 Italian film ‘Nights of Cabiria’ by Federico Fellini was one such inspiration. Its empathetic take on sex work remained a notable influence on Baker’s work in ‘Anora.’
