Anora (2025) by Sean Baker - a review

Hello everyone and anyone who’s reading this. After almost a month after watching this film, I feel like I am ready to give a review to this oscar won film. 

First and foremost, there will be spoilers in this blog and there will be lots of heavy themes and trigger warnings so if you're not comfortable with any of it, feel free to click off :) 

Straight from the back, the film started off strong, setting the tone of the film in the get go. I found this film such a rollercoaster of emotions, it brought me to a high and it sobered me as quick as it started. 

For the first hour of the film, we understood what kind of lifestyle Ivan/Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn’s character) led, parties, drug use and constant sex with Ani/Anora (Mikey Madison’s character). Though, I have to admit, at some point in the first hour, I felt like there were just too many sex scenes, it was almost borderlining to ‘softcore’ porn territory and had me wondering, “is it really necessary to add that to settle/build the story progression?” but I digress. I found the screenplay absolutely amazing. Everything was happening so fast and everything was so flashy, I immediately noticed the love bombing from Ivan towards Ani and how Ani slowly began to open up and get vulnerable with Ivan. Their chemistry was simply insane. That was the high I was referring to.

Now, to the moment I slowly started to sobered up when Toros (Karren Karagulian’s character) showed up with Igor (Yura Borisov’s character) and Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan’s character) to Ivan’s house and Ivan ran away without Ani. Throughout the journey finding Ivan, Ani went through a lot. I believed Ani thought Ivan really did love her or hold some form of fondness/affection towards her. She defended his name and really fought for their marriage. All while Ivan was running around town getting drunk, high and, ultimately exercising infidelity. 

Ani had everything and had nothing in one night, at the end of the day, she was truly just an escort, to Ivan, she was just a fleeting moment, all while, this was a lifetime to her. 

As we approached the climax of the story, I noticed there were so many parallels from the beginning - the scene where she looked out the window from Ivan’s house, the scene where she asked Ivan if he had a good time, etc. I found that was a really nice detail, a whole circle, if you must. 

Now let’s discuss the ending. 

From what I understand, a lot of people did not like nor understand the ending. I am not one of those people. I found the ending very realistic because genuinely, what will, would or could have been done in that situation? 

I truly believed Ani wanted a good life, just wanted to be loved, nothing more to it. What she did in the car with Igor, that was probably the only way she knew how to express her gratitude because from what we saw with her relationship with Ivan, it was very hard, rough and strictly lustful and sexual. So when Igor showed this gentleness towards Ani, something/a foreign concept to her, she reacted uncomfortably and started lashing out. And the ending was probably the first time we ever saw Ani cry, her facade melted into Anora, this soft woman who thought she finally loved and had a comfortable life, the girl who wanted to go to Disneyland for her honeymoon. 

To conclude my review or tl;dr, this film was so unserious and serious at the same time, that the end of the day, it was never a love story but a story about some of the realties of sex work and the difference between the working classes.