Anora review – even Russian mercenaries have a sensitive side 

If you want to be a good henchman, you’ve got to lack a certain emotional depth. It’s a trope that flourished in crime films because it flourished in real life. Ever since people with ambition and means started enforcing their will on others there have been blunt, brutish lackeys to make it happen. If you stick on a film noir, gangster flick or any number of movies about spies or vigilantes, chances are you’ll meet a dozen henchmen by the end of the first act. By definition, few of them are afforded self awareness, doubt or a perspective on their lack of agency in a ruthless hierarchy. 

In Anora, Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning blend of fairytale elopement romance, sly class comedy and breathless crime caper, we get to know three distinct henchmen, but not until our heroine has completed a whole rags-to-riches journey in the first act – capped off with a Vegas wedding. 

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To start with, Baker keeps our gaze fixed on Ani (Mikey Madison), a young Brooklyn sex worker whose hardened worldview melts when it meets the boyish affection of the spoiled, effusively horny oligarch heir Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), who dreads returning to Mother Russia where he’ll be forced to join the family business. Vanya fetishises the freedoms and opportunities of America (forgetting that he can only access them with his father’s Russian money) and despite his praise and affection for Ani, he ultimately sees his sex-worker wife as an extension of America’s promise of purchasable gratification. When the threat of his parents’ discipline finally arrives on his NY doorstep, Vanya barely hesitates before fleeing Ani in fear of their wrath. 

His parents can only keep tabs on their son’s behaviour if their hired hands perform their duties. In charge of Vanya watch is Toros (Karren Karagulian), who’s both an Orthodox priest and the kid’s godfather. In his employ is Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), a fellow Armenian, and Igor (Yura Borisov), who most resembles a one-dimensional henchman but surprises us with a slow-burn empathy for the increasingly sidelined Ani.  

From the moment Toros discovers Vanya’s marital situation, he orders that the honeymooners receive a visit from the goon squad. Once Vanya flees, his street-smart wife is forcibly restrained to prevent her from further violence (Ani’s body count after 10 minutes with the henchmen: Garnick’s broken nose, Igor’s bitten neck, Vanya’s trashed mansion). As Anora turns its back on Ani’s too-good-to-be-true courtship, it feels like she’s being punished for her uncharacteristic romanticism. It’s here that Baker makes his incisive class commentary – that you only get true solidarity with people facing the same hierarchical hardships as you, but those hierarchies are designed to stop you from clocking your collective strength. 

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The busy middle of Anora isn’t just a cocktail of Three Stooges slapstick and John Cassavetes-tinged city-wide pursuit, it’s the only section of the film where the mega-rich aren’t present. Still, the four remaining leads work themselves into a tizzy trying to preserve their relationships to them. Toros wants the marriage annulled, Ani wants her marriage accepted by Vanya’s family – both are sure they will get their way and, as a result, see each other as stupid and disposable. The hunt for Vanya is both fuelled and impeded by Toros’s chauvinist antagonism: he feuds with strangers for not respecting him and aggravates workers he needs help from – whether they be lowly tow-truck drivers or city judges. 

Toros has a delusional sense of purpose that, thanks to Karagulian’s perfect mix of oafish condescension and weary dependence on the grace of Vanya’s parents, every other character tries to define themselves against. Toros wants Ani to know that he suffers far more than her, but he ends up as a blueprint for who Ani and Igor don’t want to be when they’re the same age. 

As Ani and Vanya’s marriage feels increasingly doomed, Baker finds room for thoughtful asides where Igor is visibly conflicted over his compassion for Ani’s treatment and the fact that, as a hired goon, he’s partly responsible for it. He may be the most sensitive mercenary, but how effective can acts of kindness be when they’re trying to correct harm you were hired to commit? 

In a moment of welcome integrity near the film’s end, Igor leaves the Vegas marriage licence office by instructing Vanya to apologise to Ani in front of his parents. Vanya’s domineering mother (Darya Ekamasova) laughs him out; Igor is simply not worth enough to be allowed a moral high ground. 

It may not be as dramatic or effective as Darth Vader throwing the Emperor down an industrial shaft, but for a story set in the crushingly real world, this cathartic henchman heel-turn is the closest Anora gets to a victory for workers. 

Anora is in cinemas from 1 November. 

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