Anora "Ani" Mikheeva is a young stripper living in Brighton Beach, a Russian-speaking neighborhood in Brooklyn. As Ani is the only stripper in her upscale Manhattan strip club who speaks Russian, her boss introduces her to Ivan "Vanya" Zakharov, the dissolute and immature son of wealthy Russian oligarch Nikolai Zakharov. Vanya is ostensibly in America to study, but prefers to party and play video games in his family's Brooklyn mansion. His parents pay his godfather Toros and henchmen Garnick and Igor to keep an eye on him and clean up his messes.
Vanya hires Ani for several sexual encounters. He grows attached to her and pays her $15,000 to stay with him for a week and pose as his girlfriend, triggering a whirlwind romance. Vanya and his entourage fly to Las Vegas, where Vanya asks Ani to marry him. Although Ani is initially skeptical, Vanya insists his love is genuine, and they elope in a small Vegas wedding chapel.
After the wedding, Vanya offhandedly mentions that he hopes to use Ani to obtain a green card so that he will not have to go home and work for his inattentive father. Ani quits her job at the club and throws herself into the role of Vanya's devoted wife, but Vanya remains childish and thoughtless. News of the wedding spreads on Russian social media, to the fury of Vanya's domineering mother, Galina. She orders Toros to find the couple and arrange an annulment while the family flies to America.
Toros sends Garnick and Igor to the mansion to confront Ani and Vanya. They inform Vanya that his parents will take him back to Russia, while enraging Ani by repeatedly calling her a prostitute. Vanya flees on foot, leaving Ani to deal with the fallout. She fights Garnick and Igor, injuring both and destroying much of Vanya's living room in the process; they eventually subdue her. When Toros arrives, he lectures Ani about Vanya's immaturity and explains that Vanya has no personal assets to split in a divorce. He offers her $10,000 to accept the annulment. Ani insists that she and Vanya are in love, but reluctantly agrees to help Toros find him in the hope that she is able to remind Vanya of their love. Toros also confiscates Ani's wedding ring.
Ani, Toros, Garnick, and Igor spend most of the night driving around Brooklyn looking for Vanya. They learn that Vanya, unable to cope with the stress, has gone on a bender and is visiting a string of nightclubs. Ani catches Vanya receiving a lap dance from a rival stripper at her former workplace, whom she engages in a violent fight. She desperately tries to explain the situation to Vanya, but he is too intoxicated to listen. After learning that the wedding cannot be annulled since Ani and Vanya were wed in Nevada, Galina – who has just landed in New York with Nikolai – orders the group to fly to Las Vegas.
Ani introduces herself to Vanya's parents in Russian, attempting to prove herself to them and salvage her marriage to Vanya, but Galina is unmoved and openly contemptuous of Ani. Vanya immediately concedes to his parents, coldly telling Ani that the marriage is impossible. Ani, having not signed a prenuptial agreement, threatens to force Vanya through lengthy divorce proceedings, but Galina pledges to destroy her life if she does. Recognizing Vanya's immaturity and his family's power, Ani gives in and agrees to the annulment. After the papers are signed, Igor suggests that Vanya apologize to Ani, but Galina insists that her son will not apologize to anyone. Before leaving, Ani insults Vanya and Galina for their dysfunction, causing Nikolai to laugh hilariously.
Igor takes Ani back to New York to pack up her belongings. They spend a final night in the Zakharov mansion, where they exchange genuine conversation, including Igor admitting that the day prior was his birthday. In the morning, Igor gives Ani the money Toros promised her and drives her home. Before dropping her off, he returns Ani's wedding ring as a token of goodwill. Moved by the gesture, she briefly initiates sex with Igor but resists when he attempts to kiss her, before breaking down sobbing in his arms.
Cast
Mikey Madison as Anora "Ani" Mikheeva, a high-priced stripper at the Headquarters strip club[8]
Mark Eydelshteyn (alternatively anglicized to "Eidelstein") as Ivan "Vanya" Zakharov, the wealthy but immature son of a Russian oligarch[9]
Yura Borisov as Igor, a Russian henchman hired by Toros to look after Vanya
Karren Karagulian as Toros, an Armenian handler employed by Vanya's father to look after him
Vache Tovmasyan as Garnick, an Armenian henchman and Toros' brother
Director Sean Baker with his wife and co-producer Samantha Quan
Sean Baker stated that Anora was inspired by a story from a friend about a Russian-American newlywed who was kidnapped for collateral. He was also inspired by his work in 2000 and 2001, when he edited wedding videos, including ones of Russian-Americans in New York.[10] Baker has stated that his intentions were towards "telling human stories, by telling stories that are hopefully universal [...] It's helping remove the stigma that's been applied to [sex work], that's always been applied to this livelihood."[11] Baker hired Andrea Werhun, a Canadian writer and actress best known for her 2018 memoir Modern Whore about her prior time as a sex worker, as a creative consultant.[12]
Baker chose to cast Mikey Madison as the eponymous lead after seeing her in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and Scream (2022).[10][13] He hired Madison without an audition.[14] Madison learned Russian, visited strip clubs, and studied the Brooklyn accent to prepare for the part.[14] Although some media outlets incorrectly reported that Anora Mikheeva was Uzbek-American, Baker later clarified in an interview with NPR that Anora "is of Russian ethnicity" and "from one of the post-Soviet countries".[13][15][16]
Principal photography took place at the beginning of 2023 in Brooklyn, New York.[17] Filmed over 37 days, with the 25-minute home invasion scene taking 10 days, Anora was shot on Kodak 35mm film using an Arricam LT, with color correction being completed via DaVinci Resolve at FotoKem.[18] Alex Coco, one of the film's producers, worked as a disc jockey for the music in the scenes in the club.[19] Baker had over 30 speaking parts in the film.[20]
For the Zakharov mansion, Baker filmed at 2458 National Drive, a Mill Basin mansion once owned by Vasily Anisimov, an actual oligarch with ties to Russia. Baker had searched on Google for "the biggest and best mansion in Brighton Beach."[21] To learn more about the area, Baker and Mikey Madison temporarily moved to southern Brooklyn during pre-production. Toros and Ani's search for Vanya during his Brooklyn bender is filmed in a number of restaurants and clubs that the producers had actually frequented.[22]
At a press conference in Cannes, Madison stated that Baker and producer Samantha Quan, who is Baker's wife, would act out different sex positions to demonstrate what they wanted the actors to do. Madison was offered an intimacy coordinator, but said: "As I'd already created a really comfortable relationship with both of them for about a year, I felt that that would be where I was most comfortable with and it ended up working so perfectly."[11]
Worldwide distribution rights were acquired by FilmNation Entertainment in October 2023. The film was then sold by FilmNation to Le Pacte for France, Lev for Israel, Kismet for Australia and New Zealand, and Focus Features/Universal Pictures International for the rest of the world excluding North America in deals similar to those made on Baker's previous film, Red Rocket.[17] In November 2023, Neon acquired North American distribution rights to the film,[24] and opened it in limited release on October 18, 2024.[25][26]
As of December 7, 2024[update], Anora has grossed $13.1million in the United States and Canada, and $12.4million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $25.5million.[5][6]
In the United States, the film made $550,503 in its opening weekend from six theaters; its per-screen-average of $91,751 was the best of 2024 (topping Kinds of Kindness' $75,458 average), and the second-best since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (after Asteroid City's $142,230).[40][41] Expanding to 34 theaters in its sophomore weekend, the film made $908,830 and finished in eighth place.[42] Continuing its expansion, the film made $1.8 million from 253 theaters and $2.5 million from 1,104 in its third and fourth weekends, respectively.[43][44]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 278 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Another marvelous chronicle of America's strivers by writer-director Sean Baker given some extra pizzazz by Mikey Madison's brassy performance, Anora is a romantic drama on the bleeding edge."[45]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 91 out of 100, based on 61 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[46] On AlloCiné, the film received an average rating of 4.2 out of 5, based on 45 reviews, from French critics.[47]
Greta Gerwig, serving as the president of the 77th Cannes Film Festival Jury, commented that "[Anora] was something we collectively felt we were transported by, we were moved by [...] It felt both new and in conversation with older forms of cinema. There was something about it that reminded us of [the] classic structures of Lubitsch or Howard Hawks, and then it did something completely truthful and unexpected."[48]
Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote: "[Anora is] a wild, profane blast [...] Even when Baker's storytelling and dialogue gets repetitive, Madison keeps things lively [...] I found myself torn between finding Baker's conclusions compassionate and sensing a vague whiff of something patronizing. [...] Baker's explorations of outsiders tend to tread between graciousness and gawking, benevolent anthropology and the more malevolent, missionary kind."[49]
Justin Chang of The New Yorker wrote: "Anora plays like a wild dream—first joyous, then catastrophic, and always fiercely unpredictable [...] A contemporary return to screwball tradition is a welcome but challenging proposition, and Baker's play with the form is hardly seamless. [Anora] built up a righteous steam of fury, now unleashes it against the Ivans of the world and salutes those toiling thanklessly in their employ."[13]
Sight and Sound put the film as their second pick on their list of the best 50 movies of 2024.[50]
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