Sean Baker’s new Oscar-buzzy film Anora is in cinemas now, but do lead characters Ani and Vanya have a future together at the end of the film?
The acclaimed independent film sees rising star Mikey Madison (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Scream) playing Anora ‘Ani’ Mikheeva, a stripper at a high-end Manhattan club, who meets Ivan ‘Vanya’ Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), the wayward son of a rich Russian oligarch.
Vanya is immature and unreliable, but Ani strikes up a meaningful relationship with him, eventually leaving her job and marrying him, much to the consternation of Vanya’s wealthy parents.
The film is written and directed by Baker, whose previous films have included the celebrated indie films Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket. Anora premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where it won the Palme d’Or Award, the first American film to do so since Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life in 2011.
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NME spoke to Madison ahead of the film’s release, who gave insight into her relationship with her character. “I was excited about playing a character like this, because she’s very complicated,” she said. “I always wanted an audience to recognise her pain underneath everything.”
“She’s a very vulnerable person on the inside. 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.”
Discussing the fact that Baker actually wrote the Anora script specifically for her, Madison added: “It’s very meaningful for someone to see something in you that nobody had really seen before, or given me an opportunity to show.”
Anora ending explained: do Ani and Vanya have a future together?
After the couple elope to Las Vegas to marry, the news reaches Vanya’s parents Nikolai and Galina back in Russia, who immediately fly to New York to confront them and force them into an annulment.
In a pivotal 28-minute setpiece, Nikolai’s henchmen provoke Ani by repeatedly referring to her as a prostitute, while the immature Vanya flees from the situation on foot. Ani fights them off impressively, but is ultimately contained by them.
She is offered $10,000 to accept the annulment, and reluctantly agrees to help them find Vanya, in the hope of winning him around. They find him receiving a lap dance at Ani’s old workplace, but he is too drunk to talk around.
When his mother arrives, Vanya immediately buckles, telling Ani that their marriage is not possible, and she sees his immaturity and agrees to the annulment. She does, however, provoke Galina by suggesting it is her fault that he is so incapable of living as a man. Galina is stubborn, refusing to allow Vanya to apologise to Ani or accept accountability.
Ani spends a final night in Vanya’s Brooklyn mansion with henchman Igor, who gives her the money she was promised. Ani invites Igor on, but as he goes to kiss her, she breaks down in tears. Her love for Vanya had on some level been real, as had her desire to leave behind a life that she felt unfulfilled by, but which she may now find herself having to return to.
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