Sean Baker delivers 2024’s funniest film in the devastating Anora

Anora is a film of contrast. Operating on narrative, visual, and characteristic levels, these contrasts are perhaps best exemplified by Anora’s opening and closing credits; the former features a colourful, almost floral typeface against a vibrant and glamorous environment while complimented by none other than Take That’s 2008 hit ‘Greatest Day’, thereby visually and musically imbuing said credits with a nostalgic warmth. Inversely, the closing credits consist of a rigid, white typeface against a mundane, black backdrop as silence aches.

But why is this contrast necessary, and why is it ultimately so effective?

To explore this quandary, first, what is Anora about? Directed and written by American filmmaker Sean Baker, the eponymous Ani works as a sex worker in Brooklyn before she meets Vanya – the son of a Russian oligarch – whom she promptly marries, provoking the wrath of Vanya’s family. Baker divides the film into three distinct acts, and each merits discussion in their own right.

A magnetic performance from Mikey Madison, whose unbridled vigour and energy are perfectly in key with Baker’s aforementioned glamorisation.

 

The first act follows Anora’s initial meeting with and subsequent marriage to Vanya, yet is primarily focused on falsification and deception. The environment in which Ani works is luminous – sensationalising the otherwise uncomfortable sexual setting – yet dimly lit, which effectively prevents the viewer from penetrating the alluring facade. Consequently, Baker initially glamorises sex work and renders us complicit in accepting this presentation, before shredding this portrait as the film progresses. Indeed, this depiction is spearheaded by a magnetic performance from Mikey Madison, whose unbridled vigour and energy are perfectly in key with Baker’s aforementioned glamorisation. However, there is a masterful shakiness to Madison’s performance that suggests the underlying tensions of her profession that Baker ultimately corroborates. 

Furthermore, it is a testament to Baker’s screenwriting and structural prowess that the first act functions so effectively. Despite its gentle comedy, events transpire almost too perfectly in depicting the rapid rise of a lower-class figure, as the first act runs akin to a fairytale through the immediacy of Ani and Vanya’s marriage. Vanya’s enormous home and jaunts to Las Vegas are pitched in direct contrast with the ordinary domesticity of Ani’s shared flat; despite the audience’s initial desire for Ani and Vanya’s fragile love to be stabilised, this is evidently not how reality works. Yet Baker knows this, and through dreamy montage sequences and a repetition of the title credits’s Take That hit he forces their relationship upon us, thus dangerously under-preparing his audiences for the following acts. 

If Anora’s first act was Baker’s comedy, then the second is his tragi-comedy. Indeed, it is truly a feat of his direction and screenwriting that Anora’s second act is as funny as it is. As Vanya’s parents discover his marriage to Ani, their men are sent to capture the once-blissful couple and thus forcibly annul the marriage. However, you would be correct in asserting that this description does not sound comedic; from an objective point-of-view, these events are utterly miserable, populated by characters who are constantly shouting and swearing. Yet, why do we laugh? Superficially, the images and dialogue that Baker presents are undoubtedly comedic, from an irreverent brawl among the fragile contents of Vanya’s mansion to a best-unspoiled interaction with a tow truck. However, I believe that Baker is trying to delve into something beyond mere comedy. By forcing viewers to laugh at, smile at, or even enjoy the desperate chaos that unfolds before them, Baker speaks to our relationship with romance and indeed comedy; he wants us to maintain our belief that everything can and should be resolved and thus tricks us into laughing at the characters’ present tribulations. However, as the film’s ending makes very clear, not everything can be resolved in the perfect manner that viewers desire.

Anora therefore effectively argues for the mutual exclusivity between wealth and happiness.

 

Furthermore, as Ani and Vanya are captured by his parents, Baker critiques economic wealth as the deceptive surroundings of a private jet are contrasted by Vanya, his parents, and their employees all wearing utterly broken expressions. Anora therefore effectively argues for the mutual exclusivity between wealth and happiness. Moreover, Baker highlights contrast socially and narratively by asserting the impossibility of marriage between class extremes, reflecting the desperate, disparate tribulations of economic modernity back at its audience. Despite the night-and-day contrast with Anora’s initial fairytale facade, Baker refuses to jolt his audience tonally; his eventual messaging is entirely relevant, seeded and, important. 

In Anora’s final act, Baker critiques economic modernity further by highlighting the troubles associated with such stark wealth disparity. Baker’s direction, first and foremost, makes this clear, as Vanya’s mansion becomes dismally lit, suggesting that Ani and Igor – one of Vanya’s handlers, and portrayed with phenomenal subduedness by Yura Borisov – cannot exist within such an upper-class environment. Furthermore, the sunny climes of Anora are now replaced with the frigidity of winter, marking a colder colour palette that may reflect Ani’s emotional bankruptcy. Baker also restrains Joseph Capalbo’s score in the final act, rightly choosing to instead allow the characters’ dialogue to convey the mood – and thereby highlight the blisteringly real nature of the film’s closing scenes – rather than littering the action with non-diegetic music as the fairytale quality of the opening act warrants. 

It would be foolish to entirely spoil Anora’s emotionally crushing ending but, believe me, it carries the texture of both a feather and a battering ram as it conglomerates the themes of the film into a gentle yet direct scene that forces viewers to consider their own generic expectations, while also questioning reality’s rigid class boundaries, wealth disparity, and relationship with sex work. To single out a key player, it is Mikey Madison’s performance that fosters such a destructive closing scene; by portraying a character that audiences cannot help but adore, the sobbing final image of Anora – following an almost two-minute long final shot that fully immerses the viewer into realising her now bleak yet hopelessly real existence – will only leave audiences in a similar emotional position.

It contrasts in both textual and metatextual fashions, forming a consistently evocative and explorative film that forcibly grounds the audience in the realisation of an uncomfortable reality.

 

And so, to conclude, why does the contrasting Anora – as surmised by its opening and closing credits – work so well? Firstly, Baker’s three acts each carry a specific mood that refuses tonal clashes, rather allowing each atmosphere to gradually transform and glide seamlessly into the next, thereby refraining from jolting the audience. However, its contrasting moods are also reflected characteristically and visually; Ani and Vanya – initially full of a youthful optimism following their marriage – end the film emotionally destroyed, highlighting the impetuosity of young love, whereas Baker’s visuals initially possess a fantastically glossy sheen that is later replaced with the grey and blue hues of reality, which Baker reels the viewer back to before the closing credits.

However, Anora is also juxtapositional in its generic adherences; labelled as a comedy-drama, Anora initially conforms to the expectations of the comedy and romance genres with its fairytale-esque narrative before brutally subverting and destroying expectations with its excessively bleak ending. It therefore contrasts in both textual and metatextual fashions, forming a consistently evocative and explorative film that forcibly grounds the audience in the realisation of an uncomfortable reality. The opening and closing credits of Anora are therefore a concise symbol of the film’s characters, themes, and genre. One need only acknowledge the plethora of plaudits that critics and awards ceremonies have delivered unto Anora to understand its exceptional cultural resonance; following successes in 2015’s Tangerine and 2017’s The Florida Project, Anora is yet another masterwork from Sean Baker, and my personal favourite film from the fairly strong cinematic catalogue of 2024.