A Love Story Between Two Classes

Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madison in "Anora"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

We’ve all seen stories like those, stories about two people who fall in love from different worlds, despite the restrictions that their social and economic stations have on them.  Given how long this type of narrative has existed, there’s a template that such stories follow, and we know where they’ll end up before the credits roll.  Despite the familiarity that we’ve come to expect, there are some cases where we’re not taken along the route that we expect, and this can make the story all the more impactful because of how much it tries to be more truthful to life.

Writer-director Sean Baker accomplishes this for his romantic comedy-drama, “Anora.”  It’s a love story unlike any that you’ve seen in a long time, one that washes over you with its zeal, laughs, emotion, and electric lead performance.

Anora (Mikey Madison) is an exotic dancer at an upscale Manhattan strip club.  When she meets the son of a Russian oligarch, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the two begin a relationship and get married soon after.  When Ivan’s parents threaten to travel from Russia to get the marriage annulled, Anora and Ivan face increasing complications that put their love in jeopardy.

Madison jolts the screen to life with her star-making performance that shows both her character’s strength and vulnerability.  There’s so much vigor to her character as she makes it through the rough patches of her day-to-day life, showing someone who seems to roll with the punches and try to keep her tough exterior intact.  Madison’s commitment to her character does excellent work in absorbing you in Anora’s life, offering a chance to get to know her as she steps into a life of luxury and then has to hold onto it and make that happiness last as long as possible.  Madison provides Anora with the type of streetwise grit where she’s not afraid to take control of a situation and stand up to those who get in her way.  This is a performance that comes with humor, joy, sadness, tension, and so much else, and Madison does whatever she can to make sure that you’ll remember her, whether it be in the heart-to-heart talks between her and Ivan or the chaotic highs into which she ventures later in the story.

The film comes with several performances from actors who may be unfamiliar to American audiences, but they leave an impact nonetheless in how much they inhabit their characters.  Eydelshteyn is terrific as a throws-his-money-around individual who never seems to grow up; Karren Karagulian is a lot of fun to watch as Toros, Ivan’s handler who tries to do his best to maintain the film’s increasingly messy situation; and Vache Tovmasyan and Yura Borisov as Garnick and Igor, respectively, Toros’ two henchmen, the latter of whom delivers one of the film’s most surprising performances in terms of where his arc goes.

All five of these performances coalesce incredibly well throughout the movie as everything unravels and they go further into disorder.  The way in which the cast members bounce off of each other to bring as much vivacity as possible to every scene is what makes this one of the finest casts of the year.  This is especially true in the movie’s tense, nearly-half-hour home-invasion scene where everyone gives whatever they can to the craziness of the sequence, all of which sets the unpredictable tone for the second hour of the film.

The screenplay from Baker takes a simple template and creates something invigorating, making a story that’s both a complex romance and a fast-paced thriller.  While most of the first half of the movie is a wonderful look at the main character and what could be her first real shot at love, it soon goes into a wild ride that takes you around New York City as Anora’s relationship meets one hurdle after another.  In the middle of the narrative’s kinetic location-hoping, we have a view of Anora and how other people see her, offering a depth to her character as she tries to have people see that she’s more than what they assume.   

With this movie’s NYC settings, as well as a segment that takes place in Las Vegas, Baker makes sure to capture their sights with cinematography by Drew Daniels.  Throughout the film, Daniels uses handheld camerawork to have us feel the energy that the characters experience, while also utilizing immersive long takes that allow for dialogues and emotions to unfold, a method that’s the most impactful in the movie’s final scene, which helps it become one of the best endings of the year.  Between Daniels’ photography and Baker’s screenplay and direction, the movie has the haywire energy of NYC-based movies, like Josh and Bennie Safdie’s “Uncut Gems” and “Good Time," with characters talking over each, being on the move for most of the time, and being followed by a dynamic camera that manages to keep up with the action.

It’s always exciting to see a filmmaker upend a certain type of story that has made its foundations through countless movies, and with what Baker does to the girl-meets-boy structure in “Anora,” you’re in for something that breaks those rules and creates a bold and exciting whirlwind of a romance.

Grade: A