Don’t forget you can join us in the bar after the 5pm screening to talk about Anora and other films at our First Thursday Film Club.

Writer-director Sean Baker has returned with his latest film, Anora. After winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, alongside its initial reception, Anora has easily become one of the most anticipated films of 2024. After waiting for its release for what seemed like forever, I was more than ready to attend the first showing at the Picture House.

Mikey Madison gives a phenomenal, standout performance in the titular role that lingers long after the film ends. The starry-eyed Anora, who prefers Ani, is a 23 year old sex worker who dances in a Manhattan strip club. It is here that she meets Ivan or Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the unfledged son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. Vanya soon makes Ani a business proposal à la Pretty Woman to be his girlfriend for the week. Enticed by the payout and by his life of frivolous excess, she agrees. Ani begins to fall for Vanya and her character is initiated into his world through head-spinning, reeling romantic montage. After their impromptu marriage (set to an unexpectedly moving needledrop), Ani believes this to be her golden ticket out of the club for good. Hopeful, uplifted and disarmed, we are enticed into the fantasy alongside Ani – tantalised by the prospect of a better life.

Once Vanya’s parents hear the news of the pair’s nuptials in Russia and of Ani’s profession, they set out to annul the marriage with the help of their associate Toros, flawlessly portrayed by Baker’s long-time collaborator Karren Karagulian. The film descends further into chaos when events lead Ani to assist Toros, his brother Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and gentle henchman Igor (Yuriy Borisov) in a manhunt for Vanya. As the foursome embark on a voyage through the streets of Brooklyn, the night tailspins into a sobering series of events, emphasised by flash cuts and overlapping, clamorous New York accents – reminiscent of the Safdie brothers’ Good Time (2017) or Uncut Gems (2019).

Baker is no stranger to this kind of storytelling. As seen in preceding titles Starlet (2012) and Tangerine (2015), the stories of sex workers are often at the forefront of his work. Baker’s films are typically structured as comprehensive character studies, employing realism to authentically explore the human condition as it relates to poverty, class, and living on the margins of American society. Anora is no doubt a continuation of this style and these themes, however confronts wealth and apathy in a way not before seen in these earlier titles.

Anora deconstructs the rags to riches trope with brutal honesty. The film is a tragicomedy akin to life itself, finding glints of light in its darkest moments. Amidst the calamity, the cast preserve a tactful, comedic tone that cuts through the bleakness. Ani, beneath her glittering exterior and professional persona, is a gritty, wilful and fierce character, able to hold her own in otherwise distressing circumstances. Her determination to escape a life of poverty propels the narrative forward. As though it were a survival instinct, she remains unrelenting in her own self-assurance and preservation, refusing to loosen the grip on her American dream until the bitter end.

Exhilarating, tender and utterly captivating, Anora is definitely one that you won’t want to miss on the big screen.

Sophie Laing

Now showing at the Picture House and as part of Leeds International Film Festival and the Friend’s First Thursday Meetup will be taking place after the 5pm screening on the 7th November