How many actresses need their own Cinderella story before the narrative becomes overdone? At this point, everyone and their mother has seen a Cinderella adaptation; and as clever as some of these filmmakers think they are, their homages to Grimm’s fable are never really all that subtle (although many aren’t trying to be, and that’s okay, too). Cinderella’s plight represents the all but futile idea that you can achieve the American dream entirely separately from the system that makes it so difficult; a golden individual who maintains a fiercely humble set of morals yet still in the end attains all of the benefits enjoyed by the top percentile of a capitalist society. Throw a storybook romance in there too and how could it not be alluring?
Sean Baker’s profoundly self–aware Anora might finally be the film to turn the genre—because it’s hard to deny that Cinderella stories have become their own genre—on its head. Anora is a gorgeously shot and perfectly scripted commentary on the chaotic, gritty underworld of sex work in New York City. The movie provides an incredibly necessary, authentic, and darkly humorous humanization of a proud sex worker in today’s political climate initially introduced to its audience as nothing more than a sparkling, sexy rom–com.
Mikey Madison is the title character Anora (or “Ani,” as she prefers to be called) who works as a stripper in the Bronx within a tight knit familial community of coworkers and friends. When Ivan, the babyish, free–spirited son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn) passes through her club, Ani, the only girl who can speak Russian, soon becomes enmeshed with him.
What starts out as a coincidence of communication evolves quickly into something that seems much deeper; their budding connection leaves the walls of the strip club and his endless well of money fuels the playfully transactional nature of their relationship. When Ivan proposes to Ani to secure both a green card and a continued life of shirking his home responsibilities, she is thrilled that she might just be lucky enough to leave her old life behind for a magical romance—until reality crashes down and rips it all away.
My friend grew up in a similar neighborhood in New York City; and despite having led a very different life to the protagonist, she passionately describes Anora as a “new comfort film for sure—so funny and heartfelt.” She praises its realistic dialogue, which, within the slightly ridiculous premise, served to ground the film in an unexplored but surprisingly familiar world. Despite having a less strong personal tie to the world of the film, I also thought the characters were very lovable and real.
And it is a funny film—Baker finds his jokes not only through exchanges between the girls at the club, but also by ramping up the absurdity of Ani’s displacement in her new reality. When men hired by Ivan’s wealthy family arrive to detain them both for the purposes of an annulment, she attacks them, to their abject shock and embarrassment. She shoots her mouth off at Ivan’s mother’s demeaning comments and vigorously spearheads the charge to find her cowardly husband after he flees. In every new situation, through stinging barbs and well–timed physical comedy, she acts exactly how a girl from the Bronx would, even in moments that verge more on heartbreaking than silly.
This is where we truly see Madison, whom Baker had always had in mind while writing his stripper protagonist, come to life in her role. Ani’s soft vulnerability, intentionally concealed within the career she has chosen, becomes more apparent through every new wrinkle and is finally laid fully bare in the last scene. Ani’s sex–oriented and self–protective aversion to romantic intimacy is made heart–wrenchingly apparent. One movie reviewer thoughtfully analyzes that “the mastery in Madison’s portrayal is that her character somehow never comes off as exploited until her heart finally breaks.”
There are a lot of things about this topic that are tough to write—especially, unfortunately, in the hands of a male director. The male gaze lives on, and tackling this setting might be construed by some filmmakers as a PC minefield. But director Sean Baker is adept at handling scenes of female nudity and walking the fine line between empowerment and exploitation through his delicate, mature, and self–aware lens. Madison made sure to conduct her own research and community outreach to “represent that world in an accurate and respectful way,” and Baker is extremely transparent about the process he followed for intimacy coordination:
“I’ve directed sex scenes throughout my career so I was very comfortable doing so and also as a producer on this film, the number one priority is the safety and comfort of my actors. We prefer to call them sex shots, not sex scenes, because they’re blocked and calculated on set. The actors get to see the monitor and know exactly how they’re being shot. It is approached in such an incredibly clinical way.”
Many films show sex for the sake of capturing audience attention. While at times this can be effective and entertaining, Anora is a masterclass in intentionally centering a narrative around female sexuality while refusing to gloss over the very real side effects that sex work has on intimacy issues and emotional instability. Maybe creatives like Baker can’t directly offer these workers the socioeconomic infrastructure of decriminalization, fair wages, and legal protections. But, in a sea of media that tries to paint sex workers as morally bankrupt or more carelessly, to pin them as the butt of the joke, what he can do is build a community of flawed, confident, funny, and, at times, vulnerable women who look out for each other. Women who fight to survive and stick together, and find relatable pockets of joy along the way.
Baker is no stranger to writing humanist, discomfortable stories and shining a light on marginalized communities largely untouched by Hollywood. Two of his films are clear creative stepping stones in the process that resulted in Anora. Tangerine (2015) is about a transgender sex worker who discovers that her pimp boyfriend is cheating on her with a cisgender woman and the dark hilarity that emerges from there. The Florida Project (2017) follows children living in a motel adjacent to Disney World, who pursue whimsical adventures while remaining blissfully unaware of the heartbreaking methods their parents must employ to make ends meet. Baker plays with this sort of juxtaposition a lot; fun stories and vibrant full–of–life characters offset by the edge of a darker world just within sight.
These movies tell niche stories—rich and deep in content, beautiful and emotional, but not flashy in the way that normally appeals to a blockbuster audience. Their critical acclaim has established Baker as a respected filmmaker, if not a household name. It’s interesting, then, that Anora broke out of this mold by winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May (which I was at, and will never stop plugging), because even this elitist critical award picks films that have some semblance of mass appeal.
Audiences are willing to resonate with deep, dark, occasionally ugly narratives; and, separately, they’re suckers for romantic happily–ever–afters. Anora manages to give us both at once, holding disparate worlds in direct conjunction in a way that, according to Cannes Jury President Greta Gerwig, feels “both new and in conversation with older forms of cinema.”
It’s clear that Cinderella isn’t going anywhere. But sometimes, she can’t escape the clock striking midnight on her chance for happiness.
