Is Anora Pornography?

 

 

 

Anora (2024)

Directed by Sean Baker

Neon Films, 139 minutes, R (strippers, extensive sex, nudity, language)

★

 

I’m not a prude, but the movie Anora made me understand why some people think Western morality is on death row. I can recall my teen years when any film with the slightest bit of nudity was rated X. A Swedish film called I Am Curious Yellow was infamous because it actually showed people having sex, hence was considered XXX. (I think that meant that no one under 40 could see it and even elders needed a note from their mothers and grandmothers.) Some of us sneaked into a drive-in to see it. I can tell you that today it would be an R film, perhaps even PG-13!

 

So let me start my review of Anora with the observation that it’s pornographic. We don’t see close ups what English comics call “the naughty bits” ready for action, but you see pretty much everything else. Actress Mikey Madison who plays the titular (pun intended) character Anora Ani Mikheeva is starkers–another Britishism– for most the film. She won an Academy Award for this role. Judges must have liked what they (literally) saw, as her vocabulary consisted mostly of dropping more F-bombs than heard in a junior high locker room. The rest of Madison’s scenes were so overacted that she’s been sued by the American Histrionic Association. (Okay, I made up that last bit.) Imagine if Marissa Tomei and Joe Pesci galivanted around naked in My Cousin Vinny. Even if you had to look at Pesci’s mickey (see what I did there?) for over two hours, the dialogue in My Cousin Vinny would be sharper than what director Sean Baker wrote.

 

If you were like me–one of the few that hadn’t seen it–the skinny is that  Anora (“Ani”) works as a stripper in a sleazy men’s club whose clientele has more testosterone than brains. She is popular among the other strippers, except for Diamond (Lindsay Normington), who sees her as a rival. The “girls” depend upon tips and whatever else they can squeeze out their clients, a cut of the overpriced watered-down drinks, lap dances and, for the right price, a room and sex.  Ani hits sex worker gold in 21-year-old Ivan aka/ Vanya (Mark Eydelshyeyn)  the son of a billionaire Russian oligarch. He’s a spoiled jerk, but he offers Ani a lot of dough to be his rented girlfriend. She agrees and accesses a life she never could. Vanya claims the house is his, but it actually belongs to his father. For a week the two have non-stop sex, party, trash the apartment, and even fly to Vegas, where they get married. In other words, Anora is one of approximately 500,000 Cinderella variants. Except in this one, the wicked stepmother wins.

 

Vanya’s family is not happy. Mom and pop Nikolai and Galina (whose relationship reminded me of Trump and Melania) get in touch with their Armenian handler, who sends a few heavies around to try to get the marriage annulled. Ani refuses and Vanya has had so much dope and alcohol he’s incoherent. Hence, the ‘rents fly over in their private jet to “fix” things. Galina calls Ani a “prostitute,” which sends her into hyperspace. She insists she’s not a hooker, but what would you call someone who has sex for money? Galina fumes; Nikolai laughs. There are side stories about Ani’s boss, her colleagues, and her sister. There are also cheap laughs at the expense of the Keystone Kops-like guards who can’t contain Ani, but nearly all of movie’s “humor” is of LCD variety, as in “lowest common denominator.” And since when is abduction funny?

 

Anora has been billed as a “romantic comedy.” Given how the movie resolves, it flunks the romance part of the equation and if LCD is the best one can do, stick some clothes on the actors, cleanup the language, and aim it at the PG audience. I’m not saying that every comedy needs to have characters who discus the flaws in Hegelian dualism, but I do insist that humor shouldn’t be so broad it can only be seen on an Imax screen. Let’s call Anora what it really is: a male gaze film in which the story and the funny bits are irrelevant; the “girl bits” are all that matter. Much was made of Madison being the first Generation Z actress to win an Oscar. This  doesn’t portend a great future for American films!

 

Rob Weir