Anora dominated the 2024 Academy Awards. Sean Baker won for original screenplay, directing and editing, as well as best picture. Leading actress Mikey Madison also won.
What Baker described as a truly independent film with an $8 million budget is definitely the work of a writer-director working outside the mainstream.
But he’s also an established filmmaker who wrote this planning to direct it, with the ability to raise the funds and team needed to do so at this level.
Does that mean Anora’s screenplay might not have worked as a spec script from an unknown writer who isn’t making the movie, but trying to break in as a writer?
Let’s talk about that…
I was greatly intrigued by Baker’s Tangerine (perhaps best known for being shot on an iPhone) and The Florida Project, which I mentioned in my blog about “one act films.”
And I think the same high level of filmmaking is on display in Anora – which has a lot working for it as a movie.
As a script (and you can find it easily online to read), I think it prioritizes authenticity and originality, like his prior work. By that I mean that he seems be wanting to depict a world and characters who haven’t been depicted in this manner before, with a focus on “realness.”
That tends to be attractive to critics, film festivals and award voters. It can also be attractive to gatekeepers and contest judges looking at scripts, where “voice” is highly valued.
But I think Anora’s screenplay (like Baker’s other work) doesn’t value as highly some of the other elements that tend to be present in commercially viable scripts with mass appeal.
I have my own list of 7 such elements that my book focuses on. And I think the big one that arguably isn’t prioritized here is what I call “Relatability.”
Spoilers ahead!
By “relatability” I don’t mean that audiences can’t connect with a stripper main character.
However, I wonder if getting to know Ani more beyond her work and finding relatable elements to her life situation, personality and wants would increase its appeal.
Especially if this was “just a script” and not “a Sean Baker movie.” Because I think Anora’s screenplay on its own might struggle in that situation.
As I have written about before, movies that get made (and are perhaps successful) are not always the model for what can work for a writer trying to break in with a spec script.
Although I’m just speculating, I can imagine readers (and also mass audiences for Anora as a film) might find not enough to latch onto to connect with Ani initially.
In a nutshell her story is this:
She’s a stripper in Brighton Beach (NYC) from Russian descent who meets a very wealthy young Russian man at her club who ends up paying her for sex and then marrying her, at least partly to help him stay in the U.S. since she’s American. Then his parents (evidently criminal oligarch types) send “goons” to try to force an annulment. The young man takes off and the goons awkwardly hold Ani hostage as they look for him. She wants to find him, too, hoping he’ll side with her, but instead he surrenders to his parents’ wishes.
Is it understandable that she would be blinded by his wealth and caught up in the fantasy that this could be life-changing marriage for her? Definitely. Is that a forgivable motivation? For sure.
The question is whether it makes audiences strongly emotionally connect with her in the traditional way. I don’t think that’s Baker’s goal, particularly. And does it even matter?
I think for mass audience appeal and writers breaking in, it tends to. We generally want readers to feel like they “become” the main character through strong relatability.
In addition, Hollywood’s (and audience’s) preference is usually a main character who has strong agency as they actively pursue a goal.
This is the other challenge in Anora’s screenplay, for me. During the second act Ani is largely a passenger in the story – and quite literally, in a vehicle. The middle is driven more by what the goons want and are trying to do, and she’s along for the ride.
While she hopes finding the young man will end well for her – and she expresses plenty of opinion and emotion in her ongoing resistence to the goons – there’s not much she can do.
So the audience is left watching to see if they’ll find him and what will eventually happen when they do. Not connecting much with the goons, and with her agenda paused.
When they find him in the third act I think things pick up significantly. But whether the middle is strongly entertaining (another of my 7 elements) is another question.
Again that might not have been the goal. And in any case, people who love the movie seem to find it funny, sympathetic (even sweet) and entertaining throughout. For me it was dark, sad and a bit repetitive – even unpleasant to watch at times. Not unlike Baker’s other films. But with arguably less of a commitment to pulling back the curtain on a strange and hidden world with maximum authenticity like Tangerine and The Florida Project.
In some ways, it seemed like it was maybe going for a somewhat more conventional approach – a more traditionally entertaining and sympathetic story than those films.
But I think making that work depends a lot on relating to the main character and what she’s trying to achieve. (Or at least what’s happening in her world that she seeks to fix.)
And also what she’s doing to try to make that happen. When the main character is so limited in what they can do and has to wait things out, that’s usually not ideal for getting audience members to strongly lean in.
I also look at the nature of what she wants and how easy that is to care about, even root for. Whenever the central story goal in a movie is a relationship, as it is here, my first question is whether the audience is meant to strongly support it and want to see it work.
If so, you might say we’re in what Save the Cat calls the “Buddy Love” genre: two people are each other’s “perfect counterparts” who can help them be their best selves.
I don’t think Anora fits that model.
Still, some people are calling it a “romantic comedy.” But I think one reason it’s hard to root for the relationship is that it violates Billy Mernit’s advice in his book Writing the Romantic Comedy, which suggests that the man can’t just be motivated by sex and the woman can’t just be motivated by money.
Why? Because audiences will tend to invest in those desires less than a deeper emotional connection that could be life-changingly positive beyond those factors.
In Anora it seems pretty clear that he likes the sex and she likes the money and that’s it.
So instead it seems to lean more toward Save the Cat’s “Rite of Passage” genre, where the main character is avoiding the pain of a particular life stage by pursuing a fantasy relationship that the audience knows won’t fix what ails them, as in An Education or 10.
But without knowing Ani better from the opening set-up and feeling some universal pain that she’s going through that is relatable to most humans, it can just feel like she has dollar signs in her eyes, and no other “relatable pain.” And the tragedy (or disappointment) of where this relationship is obviously headed could lack the sense of depth or strong relatability for millions of viewers because of that.
In the end I’m happy for Sean Baker, Mikey Madison and the team involved in Anora and think there’s a lot to admire about their work here. It’s a compelling and involving film in many ways.
My focus is on the lesson in it for writers only… and the question of whether it works “on the page” and what about it could fall into the category of “don’t try this at home.”
Happy to hear your take in the comments below!
I did not see this film before the Oscars, but I watched it the following day because of all the hype. I couldn’t reconcile the awards with the film, so I watched it again to ensure I didn’t miss something on my first viewing. It was harder to watch the second time around. I read the script a few days later, thinking there must be something there since it won the best screenplay. I was wrong, or maybe I don’t know as much about writing as I thought.
I appreciate your insightful comments. No one I know has even seen the film. Although Sean is seen as an innovative filmmaker, I have never liked any of his movies. They are more about a gimmick than a story.
Hi Erik, I’m a Senior and I suggested to my wife that we watch this movie the day before the awards. Afterwards, we looked at each other and agreed that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. We discussed past winners and it just didn’t seem to belong in their company.
The times are indeed a changing…
Bob
Don’t you wonder why the writer didn’t even ATTEMPT to make the Russian oligarch kid likable, interesting, maybe-sorta a person our MC could perhaps fall in love with? If not today, then someday? Why he had to be such a zero loser of a guy, and so young and annoying? So it was just so plainly obvious she was a gold digger with the most unappealing of motivations? The theme of this movie is most definitely “People will do anything for money”. Think about it. Every character fits that theme. Literally every one. So I find it more of a tragedy. Not exactly uplifting or inspiring about the human race lol. And certainly not some “show of solidarity” with sex workers or a romantic comedy. The seedy Brighton Beach / Coney Island location adds to it. It’s a pretty working class place. No way an oligarch (or his kid) hangs out there. 1000% they have a $100 MM apt in a billionare’s tower somewhere and he parties in NYC. But it’s decaying and dirty and that is a reflection of each of our characters. I’d also add that Anora is kinda an insult to sex workers actually because it suggest that of course they are motivated by money above all else — it’s presented as sort of a given — versus their own hopes, dreams, goals and ambitions.
I guess my thoughts are this, as a “best picture” winner, in light of previous best picture winners or what one might construe as something being worthy of being a “best picture” , does this “work of art” truly create a feeling of the very best that could be created in the medium?
Will this motion picture be studied in film schools around the world, for years to come, show us the parts and pieces of story telling at its best, show us examples of the highest film principles, examples or flow, angles, dialogue, situational moments that create intrigue, tropes if need be, and all and all and all that goes into the construction and execution of arguably the greatest art form ever invented?
Sure, the subject matter is of interest and important. But is this movie the “best picture”, the best example of writing, the best execution of what we the audience are looking for when we go blindly into a theater? Is this story something that moves us unexpectedly from the opening image to the end leaving us in awe because it is the best?
As a script, does this “story” earn its place as the best example of what the artists in the field of motion pictures have to offer or can conceive and then craft in words onto paper?
Forget paradigms or turning points or any of the other “things” we have tried to label to help us write and make better films. Those things are just our attempts to help us navigate story and emotions. And I don’t think Erik’s review is trying to put this film into his “screenplay points” as much as he is trying not to offend the film or the filmmakers. The bottom line is this, is this the best film out of all the films eligible to win “best picture” or is it more a matter of a small group viewpoint and their agenda?
This film and screenplay will be forgotten because it hasn’t a principle anywhere, on paper or on celluloid, anything that remotely indicates “best”.
But hey, what do I know…
You couldn’t have said it better. I truly agree with all points. Is this the “best”? How sad that this is what Hollywood is considering the best in film. Thank you that you and Erik are expressing truth. This is the “Emperor’s New Clothes” era for almost everything. Great break down and comments. 🙂
Anora did not deserve to win the Oscar for Best Movie! Are you kidding me? It was porn! The movie was okay but it won the Oscar! You think this predictable movie with the stereotypical gold-digging ho ho and rich young Russian dude can stand alongside previous winners? Name one.
I hope Sean Baker can play other tunes cause this sex worker over-played note is grating to the soul.
Sadly, you try to fit your clumsy paradigm into a Sean Baker film. Of course, you or I couldn’t sell this idea to Hollywood, but his track record in quirky fish out of water tales is stellar. His continued focus on sex workers goes a level deeper than the Hollywood paradigm. It’s so much more than the cliched attacks and apologies presented here. Sadly, you missed the boat and retreated to a safe shoreline… It must be “interesting” to watch from there, inside the safe cliches of the industry!?
I kind of agree with Bob Reynolds that you missed the mark on this. It’s a romantic story as deft and satisfying as Pretty Woman and The Apartment. It’s a slice of life piece about the dead-end lives of a generation raised on social media, only-fans and 1%-er oligarchy. There’s a real threat of violence in it and a character who has nothing to lose. Everyone in it is struggling for self-esteem in a corrupt garbage world not of their making. It might have been a little on-the-nose with the Russian parents but otherwise, it’s bold work, tightly conceived, beautifully executed. Loves its characters for their flaws and gifts its audience with redemption arcs and hope and recognizable humanity that Tarantino could never touch.
If it doesn’t follow the 7 rules of cat-saving, or whatever other gimmicks someone wants to peddle to aspiring writers who will likely never make a cent writing, that only makes the experience richer and the rewards more deserved.
I really like Miss Madison. Nothing about this production was Award worthy. When he even won for best Editor I audibly gasped.
No is the correct answer to all questions about this fine little film. Nothing new. Zero redemption.