Sean Baker’s Anora: Oscar-Winning… Yet Overlooked?
Image Credits: Frank Sun (Wikimedia Commons)
You may love it. You may hate it. And depending on the camp, your March the 3rd was either a blissful spring day or an especially excruciating Monday. For this year’s Oscars are in, and the outcomes left little room for indifference.
Following six nominations, Sean Baker’s Anora took home five golden statuettes, including the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, and an Oscar for Mikey Madison’s performance as the leading actress. With the premise of an exotic dancer’s spontaneous marriage in Vegas, the film may indeed foster initial skepticism. However, Baker’s story is larger than that. Or, at least, the Academy seems to agree.
The dramedy is widely critiqued for - allegedly - endorsing sex work on the big screen. Yet wouldn’t such propaganda necessitate a rather exciting portrayal? Conversely, the main heroine Ani’s incentive for the pseudo-effortless ‘hustle’ is highlighted throughout the film, from her gloomy living situation to her rollercoaster-like relationship with finances. Sex work is not empowering, yes. However, Anora explores power (and a lack thereof) from a very different standpoint. Ultimately, at the film’s forefront, is not Ani’s body, but her heart.
Sure, the shining hair tinsel and bodycon dresses constitute a glamorous facade - and make no mistake, Mikey Madison’s heroine is endlessly enchanting. Anora is sensual and luring. Yet she’s been loud and vocal of her foreignness to the formal ‘Anora’. Despite the film’s title, it’s the softer nickname that shelters the heroine’s true self. The story is not about Anora, then, but about Ani. It’s her that represents the euphoria of girlhood, the fragile power of vulnerability. Ani is brave and feisty (and does, in fact, bite); she is not afraid to jump into the abyss of the unknown, or to challenge an opponent to a screaming contest. She (almost) defeats a duo of grown men in combat, yet her strength is most potent in her honesty and deep sense of hope.
The plot’s illusory foreground may be taken by romance. Still, the story’s key relationship is not the Ani-Ivan dyad (and not the Ani-Igor one either), but her relationship with herself. What does it mean to be desired? Why want that? Is sexuality the only path to connection? Is it the comfort of affection that one really craves? We wonder this in stillness, attempting to recover from the gut punch swung by the concluding scene. Prior to that, Ani had been chasing the runaway groom and thus the hope of a better, more lush life, chasing warmth - when suddenly, it’s all over, it’s snowing outside the car, and inside sit the last remains of the aching ‘what if’. It was never about the sassy punchlines and eye glitter. The truth is, none of that mattered in the silence after the makeup came off. As such, Mikey Madison confides in Interview Magazine: “I never felt naked while I was filming those scenes, even though I was. I always felt like I had some kind of costume on. The only time I ever felt naked was the last scene, and I was completely clothed.”
Anora is not just about intimacy; it’s also about courage and trust in life, dreams and individuality. It delves into the complexity of unveiling your emotions and then, even worse, navigating a way to express them. Lighting every room she steps into, Ani coordinates between an eccentric exterior and the ache for affection, all while untangling her familiarity with herself. Undoubtedly, her story echoes in all of us, at least faintly.
For what is womanhood, if not a constant performance?