Sean Baker’s “Anora” Hinges On One Pivotal Action Sequence

Everybody loves a good Cinderella/ Cinderfella story – the romantic storybook tale of a hard luck princess being swept away by her elegant Prince Charming and they subsequently gallop away into the sunset to live happily ever after.

Sean Baker’s Anora doesn’t buy into that princess fairytale fantasy. In his film, Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) is a young Russian-American sex worker from Brooklyn and her prince is a Russian oligarch’s fast and loose twenty-one year old son Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn). Baker is known for indie favorites The Florida Project, Red Rocket, and Tangerine.

Anora constructs its narrative starting with distinctly contrasting places – from sumptuous gentleman’s club, to glitzy Vegas, and even winding through the streets of Brighton Beach and Manhattan. It saunters at a brisk pace often playing as a comedic caper.

Sean Baker’s desire to tell his story stems from his long-time working relationship with actor Karren Karagulian who plays Toros, who does the Russian oligarch’s bidding an put a stop to Vanya and Ani’s whirlwind romance. Baker also wants to illustrate the colorful and vibrant Russian community in New York’s Brighton Beach/ Coney Island area.

The screenplay took shape as the actors came on board and immersed themselves into their characters and the habitat of Russian-American culture.

This is when they each reveal their true characters. Ivan has grown tired of his “studying in America” pretence and has found focus, grounding, and fun in Anora. But Ivan is scared of commitment. Perhaps he’s too young or too immature and tempestuous?

He offers Ani the perfect offer she cannot refuse – “the honey girlfriend for a week” at a price.

Anora enjoys the partying that comes along with being Ivan’s honey girlfriend, but can’t find her footing or a sense of belonging with Ivan’s friends, since she’s paid to be his girlfriend. Is either truly happy or simply content in the moment?

Anora is more than the story of a sex worker hustling together the month’s rent and falling in love with a very bad boy. Ani is a chameleon who behaves differently around different people. What’s she like with customers, friends, or being alone? She’s intuitive and senses approaching danger and adjusts accordingly.

Ani’s aware of the hustle of the clientele in gentlemen’s clubs. Young bucks looking for a thrill generally don’t spend big. Ivan is different. He talks big and spends bigger. And he asks for a Russian speaking dancer – Anora fits the bill.

He splashes his money around mainly because he didn’t earn it. Ani finds his behavior endearing and disarming. It opens her up to the possibility of romance she wasn’t necessarily looking for. Ivan, on the other hand, is a player, who is more interested in the chase than the capture. Until Ani falls for his charms and he for hers. Ivan does have his good points – he’s funny, warm and caring, albeit childish.

Following the impulsive Vegas wedding between Ivan and Anora, Toros must put an end to it as Ivan’s furious parents are en route to America to anul the marriage they disapprove of. The fairytale is quickly falling apart. But not without a fight. Anora is a ferocious and tenacious adversary to Ivan’s parents. Ivan goes into hiding and Anora is forced to partner with Toros and his goons Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov) to find him.

Toros is a trusted family friend and fixer/ handler of the Zakharov family – i.e he discreetly cleans up Ivan’s indiscretions. But annulling this marriage that Ivan and Ani are strongly devoted to, isn’t going to be so easy. It is fast but not whimsical.

It’s unclear what Toros most angry about – his perceived failure at letting Ivan marry a sex worker on his watch or his failure at letting down the Zakharovs.

The entire screenplay for Anora was built on a defining home invasion/ fight scene of Ivan and Anora’s house by Toros and his associates. It goes spectacularly wrong and lasts for over twenty minutes. The rest of the story stems from this pivotal sequence.

“I knew that I wanted to show the home invasion taking place in real time in the middle of the film, so the screenplay was structured around that. It was all about how we got there and how it resolved,” says Baker.

Improvisation is an important part of Baker’s approach to filmmaking. Sometimes improvisation is a matter of going off-script and making up dialogue to capture a surprise innovation on set. Other times, improv is useful when the words on a page no longer make the desired impact. It can also entail building out a scene from a brief description of a character’s actions. The story is written in real time as it is being filmed to give it a sense of immediacy and spontaneity.