sex work

ANORA: human spirit vs the oligarchs

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Photo caption: Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madison in ANORA. Courtesy of NEON.

In Sean Baker’s thrilling comedy Anora, Ani is a young Brooklyn lap dancer and escort who besots an even younger Russian customer, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). Ivan is the son of a billionaire Russian oligarch, and the two spend several days, and countless thousands of Ivan’s unlimited fortune, partying. Ivan even impulsively takes Ani and four of their friends to Las Vegas on a luxury spree. There, Ivan convinces Ani to marry him before they return to Ivan’s NYC mansion.

But, just as they are settling into married life, Ivan’s parents catch wind of what is, to them, an unacceptably scandalous marriage and head to New York on their private jet. In the mean time, the parents order their NYC fixer and his team to corral the young lovebirds and undo the marriage.

Ani and Ivan are mismatched, but not because of his wealth and her poverty. The most important contrast between them is that he has never had to work or fight for anything, and she has worked and fought every day for her own survival.

Giggly, giddy and ever stoned, Ivan is spoiled and extremely immature; (he acts like his maturity was stunted at 13). This is a person who has never lived a moment of responsibility, nor has even a thought of responsibility crossed his mind. He sees a green card marriage as an escape from his Russian family and (horrors!) a future career as an oligarch-in-training. That’s a fantasy. Billionaires giveth and billionaires taketh away

The fixer (Karren Karagulian), his Armenian henchman (Vache Tovmasyan) and a Russian hooligan (Yura Borisov) arrive at the mansion and all hell breaks loose. From this moment, Anora, which has been very entertaining, vaults into a rollicking, hilarious thrill ride. Ani is a woman of uncommon spirit and is immediately too much for the oligarch’s Russian-speaking crew to handle.

Ani and the goons spend the next twelve hours on a raucous and hilarious nighttime manhunt through NYC that had the audience HOWLING with laughter – and this was a 4 PM weekday arthouse audience. I haven’t been in a theater audience that laughed so hard since Barbie.

And then there’s the last two minutes or so of the film, in which director Sean Baker sharply changes the tone of Anora. The audience was filing out, asking each other What was THAT? I thought that, given what Ani had experienced in the past forty-eight hours, Ani’s reaction in the ending was profoundly truthful, and elevated the movie from one of the year’s most fun movies to one of the best.

Anora springs from the mind of writer-director Sean Baker, whose signature is using first-time actors to tell the stories of people on the margins. His best films before Anora have been his first three: Starlet, about a young San Fernando Valley woman in the porn industry and her unlikely friendship, Tangerine, about two Hollywood Boulevard transgender hookers (shot on an iPhone), and The Florida Project, about latchkey kids in a poverty motel.

Mikey Madison (center) in ANORA. Courtesy of NEON.

Ani is a force of nature, and her spirit eventually earns her kindness from an unexpected source. Mikey Madison’s performance as Ani is stunning, bringing an aching humanity and authenticity to Ani and showcasing a remarkable gift for physical comedy. Madison stars in the TV series Better Things and played a bloodthirsty Manson Girl in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood… This is her first non-teenage starring role in a feature film.

Of the most significant roles, only Madison and the actors playing Ivan and his parents and the young Russian goon, Igor, (plus the tow truck driver) have substantial screen acting experience outside Sean Baker films. In just his fourth screen role, Tovmasyan is wonderfully watchable as the movie’s human piñata.

Mikey Madison and Yura Borisov in ANORA. Courtesy of NEON.

At first Yura Borisov’s Igor seems to be only what he is paid to be – a tagalong thug. But one of the pleasures of Anora is watching Igor regard the other characters and silently judge their behavior. Borisov starred in Compartment No. 6, one my favorite films of 2022. That film won the Grand Prix, essentially the second place award, at Cannes. This year, Anora won the top award at Cannes, the Palme D’Or. Quite a run for Borisov.

How often can a raunchy comedy win the Palme D’Or and contend for the Best Picture Oscar? Sean Baker and Mikey Madison are making that happen this tear with Anora.

SWEETHEART DEAL: a triumph of cinéma vérité

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Photo caption: Kristine in SWEETHEART DEAL Courtesy of Abramorama; copyright Aurora Stories LLC.

The engrossing documentary Sweetheart Deal follows four Seattle sex workers; none of them want to be working in prostitution, but each is a heroin addict and sees obstacles to getting sober. They are at best indifferent to the men they service and fear that some night’s customer will turn out to be a murderer.

Elliott is a man in his 60s who lives in an RV parked on the strip. He says his mission is to keep the prostitutes safe, offer them comfort and encourage them to kick their addiction. All four women drop in to Elliott’s RV for a meal or a nap. Elliot’s RV is the hub of Sweetheart Deal.

This is a remarkably empathetic film. Each woman tells her own story of addiction, and we witness the ravages of heroin addiction upon their health and the carnage in their family relationships. In the third act, there’s an an unexpected betrayal, sickening and monstrous. Not every heroin addict who works the streets is going to survive. But even the most vulnerable can sometimes find the power to find justice and save themselves – and that’s the ultimate redemption in Sweetheart Deal.

It’s harder to identify with Elliott, despite his self-proclaimed altruism. Essentially, he’s just another homeless guy who is getting a form of status and authority from his vocation with the women. He enjoys the attention of the documentary crew and reporter, so much so that he doesn’t notice that the reporter is appalled by an inappropriate boast.

Sweetheart Deal is a triumph of cinéma vérité. A project of over seven years, Sweetheart Deal is the first feature directed by Elisa Levine and the late Gabriel Miller, and it is brilliant filmmaking on several levels. The filmmakers managed to engender an amazing level of trust with their subjects, resulting in the access tht allows the audience inside their world. It’s also brilliantly constructed and edited; the very first shot of the film – a man feeding pigeons – takes on new meaning and importance by the end of the film.

I’ve reviewed fifteen documentaries this year and screened another 80 while helping to program a film festival. Sweetheart Deal is the best documentary I’ve seen this year.

Sweetheart Deal releases in LA on October 18, including at the Laemmle Royal.