Rating: 5/5

This article contains major spoilers for Anora.

In a neon-lit lap dance club, we meet Anora. She's topless and gyrating in slow-motion on top of a horny man. We hear Gary Barlow's vocals in "The Greatest Day" paired alongside this image. For those familiar with the song, it's a little jarring, but amusing. Here, Sean Baker sets the tone for Anora: glittering, extravagant, absurd, and unexpectedly poignant.

Anora, or Ani as she prefers, is performed with natural precision by Mikey Madison. She's an erotic dancer and escort from Brooklyn, whose rusty grasp over the Russian language connects her with a young wealthy client -- Ivan, or Vanya as his friends call him. After a week together in Las Vegas, the two elope; less than twenty-four hours later, the news reaches Vanya's parents in Russia. The wealthy oligarchs disapprove of the marriage and demand its annulment.

The engine of this story rides upon a thesis proposed by bell hooks in her book of essays, All About Love: 'males learn to lie as a way of obtaining power, and females not only do the same but they also lie to pretend powerlessness.' Ani and Vanya's relationship depicts the performance of said lies, as well as the consequences.

As a sex worker, Ani has to analyse her clients and adjust her service according to their desires. Her ability to assess their fantasy dictates her financial health for her foreseeable future; each night in the club, she must entice enough clients to cover her rent, bills, food, toiletries, makeup, clothes, hair, and social life. As Sean Baker explains for The Verge:

These young dancers, they’re either approaching a client or having a client approach them. Within seconds, they have to read that man and try to figure out, “Okay. How do I adjust my performance in order to get this person to spend money on me and perhaps take him to a private [place]?” It’s a real hustle, but it involves psychology. It involves the dancer to be exactly tuned to what that person is going through or thinking.

A sex worker has to seduce their client and maintain an emotional shield to protect their own mental health, whilst potentially taking on the role as an unexpected confidant to their client. The intimacy sex workers manufacture takes a high level of emotional intelligence. As such, sex workers are required to provide an intense amount of emotional labour across a prolonged period of time whilst wearing minimal clothing. Speaking with Isabelle Huppert for Interview, Madison confided: 'I knew from the beginning that [Ani is] a character who uses her body in a very specific way because it’s part of her job... her nudity is kind of like a costume.' Every day Ani goes to work and feigns her interest in men for financial gain. It's not malicious -- it's a job. But how does Ani manage her work/life balance in a role so emotionally demanding?

'She’s a very vulnerable person on the inside,' Madison explains in an interview with NME. 'There are times where she’s very hurt, very sad, but she’s constantly covering it up. She doesn’t want anyone to see her crack.'

After providing Vanya with a nude lap dance ('this is against the rules,' Ani purrs as she slides off her thong, 'but I like you'), the two reconnect at his parent's gigantic home for a paid sexual encounter. He performs like a dog in heat. But he's not violent or condescending; he's young and immature. He has a lot of spare money that he's willing to spend on parties and drugs and girls like Ani.

It's like Gen Z Pretty Woman. Vanya, however, lacks Richard Gere's distinguished air. Mark Eydelshteyn makes a convincing fool. But there's nuance to his carelessness, which, unlike Ani's actions, is motivated by a malignant undertone that Gere's character eventually grows out of. Vanya, however, doesn't have to. More significantly so: he doesn't want to.

Ani and Vanya enter into a week-long girlfriend experience arrangement. An image that will be familiar to many is one that Baker repeats throughout their relationship montage: Vanya, playing video games with his arm around Ani, who watches him with an apathetic expression. The emotion Ani labours the most in this dynamic is boredom.

But here she only has to provide this labour to one man as opposed to many. Not only that, but the financial benefits are abundant: a mansion, endless celebrations, private jets, a trip to Las Vegas, swimming pools, casinos, massages. This is Ani's job. At the end of their week together, Vanya proposes that the limitless hedonism becomes her life. With some hesitation, but with the promise of a four-carat diamond ring, Ani accepts.

In truth, the ring is only part of her reason for acceptance. We can see from Madison's adept expressions that Ani doubts Vanya's reasoning for the proposal. As she stares him in the eye, and he stares right back, she searches for sincerity -- and finds it.

The arrangement could have ended there. Vanya did not have to lie about his desire for commitment. In doing so, he hopes to avoid returning to his family in Russia. As Eydelsheyn says in conversation with TIME:

It is the story of a kid who is broken because of power. He's trying to laugh. He's trying to find his place in this world. And with Anora, he approaches it, but it's impossible to be the kid forever. So it's a story of growing up.

In Russia Vanya faces familial duties. As the son of an oligarch, those are duties are ambiguous, but likely unethical considering the level of his family's wealth. In an attempt to escape those questionable duties, Vanya manipulates Anora's guarded emotions to secure a green card. hooks explains that this behaviour is often learned by children from their parents:

Much of the lying people do in everyday life is done either to avoid conflict or to spare someone's feelings... Lots of children are confused by the insistence that they simultaneously be honest and yet also learn how to practice convenient duplicity.

Vanya's erratic behaviour is that of a confused little boy. Upon returning home, news of his and Ani's union quickly travels back to Russia. Toros (played by Karren Karagulian) is sent to annul the young couple's marriage, with the assistance of bumbling goons Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yuriy Borisov). The threat of accountability is too much for Vanya. He runs, leaving Ani alone with two rather large, rather alarming men.

And so, she scraps as hard as she can, leaving the men covered in bruises and blood and the house in shattered glass, but ends up tied up and gagged. Toros returns from his failed hunt for Vanya, left as flabbergasted as Garnick and Igor by the chaos created by our belligerent, beautiful Ani. The gruelling comedy of this scene is largely thanks to the warmth of the battle between Madison and Borisov; she, labelling him a pervert for attempting to hold her down, he, begging her to stop fighting so he doesn't have to. But she's unwilling to give up her marriage to Vanya. She has just awoken to her first morning as his wife, only to be abandoned and held captive by her husband's handlers. She negotiates with venom. Eventually, Toros leads her to the agreement that if they find Vanya, they will allow him to decide if he will accept the annulment. Ani's faith is unwavering.

The quarrelsome quadruplet hunt for Vanya across the dreary setting of Brighton Beach. After a perpetual search, Vanya is found in the lap dance club he met Ani in. He's in a VIP room receiving a dance from another girl. Ani begs him to refuse the annulment, reassures him that she can forgive his infidelity, but he's too inebriated to respond.

Hours pass. Ani finally gets the chance to meet her in-laws -- offering her hand in greeting with a vibrant smile, Vanya's mother refuses to look at the sex worker that married her son. His father is amused by the raunch of it all. As they board the oligarch's private aeroplane to annul the marriage in Vegas, Ani looks to Vanya for comfort. He hasn't looked at her either. Without making eye contact, he tells her to get on the plane.

'Many men confess that they lie because they can get away with it; their lies are forgiven' (hooks).

After the couple sign their annulment papers, Ani hits Vanya over the head. His father is in hysterics. His mother moves to protect her son.

Patriarchal masculinity requires of boys and men not only that they see themselves as more powerful and superior to women but that they do whatever it takes to maintain their controlling position... Now that women's earning power has greatly increased (though it is not on a par with men's), and women are more economically independent, men who want to maintain dominance must deploy subtler strategies to colonize and disempower them... While much cultural attention is given to domestic violence and practically everyone agrees it is wrong for men to hit women as a way of subordinating us, most men use psychological terrorism as a way to subordinate women. This is a socially acceptable form of coercion. And lying is one of the most powerful weapons in this arsenal. When men lie to women, presenting a false self, the terrible price they pay to maintain 'power over' us is the loss of their capacity to give and receive love. Trust is the foundation of intimacy. When lies erode trust, genuine connection cannot take place. While men who dominate others can and do experience ongoing care, they place a barrier between themselves and the experience of love (hooks).

It is obvious that Ani and Vanya's relationship was built upon fantasy. The fantasy in question is one idealised by patriarchal capitalism. A fantasy cannot survive in reality. It is based in lies and omission of truth. Whilst it may provide a temporary escape from the truth, without this truth there is no intimacy. Without intimacy there is no connection. There is no love.

This lack of love has left Ani a shell of herself. She showed her truth in the moments when she let out her aggression upon Vanya. But as Vanya returns to his parents' wealth, Ani returns to her work. 'The whole film, my character has been covering up her emotions with a hardness, not letting anybody see her crack,' Madison tells in her conversation with Interview. This is a hardness that she has had to curate for the sake of her job. The late nights and entertaining require a high standard of personal care that she has been able to maintain up until Vanya's manipulation. Re-entering the club will bring back memories of her would-be husband and his cowardice. She may have $10,000 as a result of the annulment, but this will only last so long -- the betrayal will last far longer.

'Consumer culture in particular encourages lies' (hooks). Submission to such circumstances is inevitable for survival. But said survival is a lie. These lies have greater emotional and material consequences for women than they do for men; we see this in the wake of Ani and Vanya's relationship.

In Anora's finale, the chemistry between Ani and Igor builds. The evening after the annulment, the two share a joint whilst she berates his character. He takes her insults in good humour. The next morning, he returns her to her home. Before she leaves the car, she manoeuvres herself into his lap, slides her underwear to the slide, and penetrates herself with him, her energy combative, and he submits himself willingly. But her aggression dissipates into a whimper. Igor holds her and helps her to slide off of his lap. In the film's final shot, Anora looks into the camera, more naked than before.

Borisov spoke of this final scene in his conversation with TIME: 'I tried to [communicate] the truth between us through the screen. You know?' Igor is Anora's reprieve from the dishonesty. In this honesty, she breaks down.

As hooks states in All About Love: 'males learn to lie as a way of obtaining power, and females not only do the same but they also lie to pretend powerlessness.' Anora demonstrates how a woman's lies of powerlessness provides sexual gratification for men. Said gratification allows for women's survival, for economic independence that makes them less reliant upon men. So, men must learn to dominate women in other ways. As we see with Vanya, his money alone is not enough to manipulate Anora: he must feign his sincerity too. With this false love, he can control her for his own gain.

The wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood on that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear each other's truth and, most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love (hooks).

Under patriarchal capitalism, women, especially those confident enough in their sexuality to provide for themselves financially (i.e. sex workers), will face greater punishment for their lies. They are punished both under classist and gendered oppression. Men are too punished for their dishonesty -- as we see Vanya is by his parents -- but not to the same extent. This dishonesty results in a loveless economy. In providing haven from this for one another, we can achieve greater understanding of another: as we see Igor do with Anora. By practicing honesty, we can build intimacy with one another. We may still have to lie in our work for the sake of survival. But if we can be honest in our personal lives, we can attain some semblance of liberation -- even if said liberation is painful.