Character Studies: Toros in Anora

Urgency is fairly easy to manufacture in a film—which is, after all, an art form that has historically been partial to time bombs and threats of intergalactic invasion, love interests that wind up tied to train tracks and walking down aisles with losers they don’t want to marry. Though movies with shamelessly engineered stakes often successfully entertain us, they do so by tapping into our adrenaline. This produces a hectic, superficial feeling. Rarely does forestalling an alien attack depend on a character’s unique personality traits (they usually just need to be brave and ripped). What is more difficult—and therefore rare—is a naturally-occurring urgency that arises not out of familiar plot tricks but out of a deep investment in the story’s characters.

Sean Baker’s newest movie, Anora, finds a way to build suspense in a manner that is intense and character-driven. The film is largely a character study of Ani (Mikey Madison), a twenty-three-year-old stripper who accepts a weeklong gig as the girlfriend to Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a wealthy Russian patriarch. During an impulsive trip to Vegas, they marry in what seems like a union of convenience for both of them: Ani for access to Vanya’s wealth, Vanya for access to Ani’s American citizenship.