Following his breakout film Tangerine, director Sean Baker has found himself and his career on a gradual rise. The Florida Project and Red Rocket were amongst the most revered films of their respective years (the former became an Oscar underdog) and secured Baker’s presence as the indie film scene’s golden boy. Now, he’s back in what appears to be a culminating moment for his career with Anora, winner of the Palme D’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and an early favorite for multiple Oscars, including Best Actress for star Mikey Madison.
In many ways, Anora feels like peak Sean Baker. Fans of his work will immediately recognize many of his trademarks – a societally-fringe cast of characters, naturalistic cinematography, and a host of modern needle drops that help set the mood – but this time wrapped in a madcap comic package whose relatively larger scale and furious pacing signal larger ambition. However, it is this very ambition under which Baker’s typically well-crafted character work buckles.
Things feel familiar in the film’s opening moments. Madison plays the titular character, referred to as Ani for short, an exotic dancer working at a high-end New York City strip club. Baker, in his continued efforts to destigmatize sex work, intimately follows Ani’s day-to-day with the quotidian air of any day job; she satisfies clients, chats with her friends, and lives in a humble apartment with a less-than-amicable roommate. Disarmingly charming yet refusing to take anyone’s bullshit, Ani is initially as recognizable yet singular as any protagonist featured in Baker’s previous work, suggesting the director is presenting his usual brand of underdog character study.

Things take a turn, however, when Ani meets Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), a young and outrageously wealthy Russian teenager. Ani, who speaks Russian, connects to her new deliriously boyish client and becomes his go-to escort; he lavishes her with luxurious vacations by day, raging parties by night, and whatever sexual euphoria happens after hours. The two have genuine chemistry, but it’s unclear what the future holds – that is until Ivan, in an attempt to avoid being sent back to Russia, asks Ani to marry him while on a trip to Vegas. She initially scoffs it off, but Ivan’s intentions appear surprisingly pure, so she agrees.
By this point in Anora, Baker has laid the foundation for a quaint romantic comedy to blossom. Not enough has been written nor performed to suggest this couple genuinely care about each beyond their materialist lifestyle, one that hinges on Ivan’s parents and their lack of oversight, but the pure joy Ani experiences amidst their nuptials suggest she has potentially found a loving partner who can provide her security. Sadly, the honeymoon phase ends quickly; upon hearing rumors that he has married a prostitute, Ivan’s parents have sent their fixer, Toros (Karren Karagulian), to collect the happy couple and pressure them into an annulment.
This is where Anora reveals its story ambitions to be more raucous than romantic. Setting his story pace ablaze near instantly, Ani and Ivan quickly find themselves at the eye of a marital storm; their molotov cocktail of brash personalities transforms a modern day Pretty Woman into a violent comedy of errors, channeling the overlapping dialogue, multi-character blocking, and intense outbursts reminiscent of directors like John Cassavetes and, more recently, the Safdie Brothers. The film’s second act is a fast-paced, laugh-a-minute chase with more precisely-timed comedy and claustrophobic on-location shooting than the director has ever previously achieved.
In this sense, the film is an achievement for Baker, however some key elements get lost in the shuffle of its propulsive pace. The film’s inciting incident, for example, has immense endurance, yet its underlying stakes are a buried lede. Ivan’s social status, as well as his parents’ level of influence, are only mentioned in passing and never portrayed visually; it is implied their marriage is something of scandal, but we don’t experience even a morsel of truth as to why that is. The level of consequence from the moment the marriage occurs is the same until the film’s conclusion and, as a result, the intensity of Baker’s screwball comedy sputters into empty thrills.

Furthermore, the heights of Baker’s intense story engine force his sensitivity for character to play second fiddle. Despite not expressing particular feelings for Ivan, Ani loses her patience as her relationship is invalidated by the surrounding cronies. Her unbridled confidence grows more and more mean-spirited and her characterization becomes confused and inconsistent. Though Madison’s performance is assured, it is far from nuanced enough to suggest motivation beyond the passive role Ani gets stuck in during the film’s second act.
For reasons that shan’t be spoiled, Eydelshteyn’s Ivan similarly sees minimal development, practically too drunk too often on-screen to provide any sobering thoughts. The film’s real stand out is Yura Borisov as Toros’ grunt, Igor, an initially quiet witness to the film’s chaos who slowly reveals himself to be a goodhearted, supportive force for Ani’s agency. Borisov’s restraint feels like natural quietude, but the more material he gets, the further he is able to weigh the film back down to reality following its comedic whirlwind.
For some, the final shot in Anora will help to properly contextualize Ani’s journey. Baker wraps a devastating bow on the character’s arc, but it would flip the script far better had the film not been so distracted in building the arc in the first place. It’s clear Anora is aiming to be just as much a character study as any of Baker’s previous work, yet its focus on (admittedly, incredibly funny) hijinks muddies what would have otherwise been a powerful dissection of the distinctions between love, romance, and respect, the constructs society builds to blend them, and how easily we buy into those constructs in the wake of class disparity. Though by no means a bad film, Anora simply doesn’t hit the same as Baker’s prior works, making his current Oscar moment ring surprisingly hollow.
Anora held its Canadian premiere as part of the Special Presentations section at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film will be released in select theaters on October 18, courtesy of NEON.

Anora is full of hilarious hijinks and thick tension, however it distracts from the more sensitive character work that defines Sean Baker’s humanist stories.
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GVN Rating 6
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Larry Fried is a filmmaker, writer, and podcaster based in New Jersey. He is the host and creator of the podcast “My Favorite Movie is…,” a podcast dedicated to helping filmmakers make somebody’s next favorite movie. He is also the Visual Content Manager for Special Olympics New Jersey, an organization dedicated to competition and training opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities across the Garden State.