What are Sean Baker’s political views? ‘Anora’ has an idea

Photo: NEON/Everett Collection

Sean Baker has been making films about letting go of reality for a long time. Every time he begins a project, he pushes his way into a social world where he is almost guaranteed to be the only upper-middle-class man in New Jersey, convincing the residents to play ball and gathering details from their lives to inform the film. He’s used this approach to tell stories about delivery drivers, counterfeit bag scammers, wannabe porn stars and desperate single mothers. These aren’t documentaries, although Baker says he wants them to feel like they are; in some films he tries to achieve this by shooting with shaky portable camcorders or souped-up iPhones. He will shoot some scenes Candid camera style, sending actors towards passersby who he then chases with a release form. Many of his actors are first-timers. Baker made a name for himself doing things this way and broke out in 2015 with his fifth feature film, Mandarineabout two young trans sex workers pounding the pavement in LA. Since then, he has become widely known and awarded for making films about American lives that are, as critics like to say, ‘on the margins’.

His films are often skeptical of the system. The characters’ journeys are littered with Catch-22s, perhaps especially so in 2017 The Florida Projectset among the accidentally long-term residents of a motel outside Orlando: When single mother Halley loses her job at a strip club because she won’t sleep with customers, she also loses her state benefits. This forces her into sex work, and she eventually loses custody of her child. It’s tempting to assume that a filmmaker who makes so many films about poor and working people is swinging politics to the left. This is not something Baker was keen to confirm. When interviewers ask why he is drawn to these stories, he says it’s because he wants to represent people who aren’t normally seen on screen. “The fact that both Democracy Now! and Ben Shapiro loved it and thought it was the best movie of the year, which said a lot to me,” he said about The Florida Project. “We’re actually doing the right thing because we’re telling these stories that can be discussed by both parties.” He has admitted that he is the devious protagonist of his 2021 film Red rocketa washed-up porn actor, has something in common with Trump. However, he added, “I also try to remain as politically neutral as possible because one of the themes I’m tackling with this film is division.”

That makes his latest film, Anoraan outlier. For the first time, Baker gives his story a clear ruling-class villain: someone the other characters can see, hear, and obey, or be crushed by. Although his previous films imply a stacked deck of cards, they remain vague about who stacked it. Anora simply tells us: it was the ultra-rich.

It starts off as a rom-com in which Anora (Mikey Madison) and Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) are in love. Well, maybe not in love. But Anora and Ivan do marriedand for the first time in a long time, Ani – as she prefers to be called – is chilling and having fun. No more late nights at the downtown strip club where she worked as a dancer when Ivan walked in, with big blue eyes and a cute Russian accent. He’s a boyish 21 to her feminine 23, a difference that hardly matters when he’s packing hundreds into her G-string. He asks her to make a house call for sex and she likes him enough to say yes. When she sees his mansion in Brooklyn, she likes it That enough to say yes again. He tells her who his infamous father is, and it kind of registers; Although Ani learned some Russian from her grandmother, she is unaware of what happens there. All she knows is that she has found the least threatening high roller in the world. One thing leads to another and that leads to Las Vegas, where she becomes, as she puts it, Ivan’s ‘little wife’. For him, marriage means a pretty girl and a green card. For her it is a ticket out of her life. “You won the lotto, bitch!” says one of her friends at the club as Ani goes back to clean out her locker. We know that now AnoraIt’s an odd couple story, but it’s not the odd couple we expect. Because once Ivan’s parents hear about his marriage, they want it annulled—and the three henchmen they release to do the job become both Ani’s archenemies and her allies, whether either of them like it or not.

Baker’s has been investigating the friction between servers and clerks since 2004 To take offhis second feature film and the only one he co-directs with Shih-Ching Tsou. (The Taiwanese filmmaker later produced and starred in several of Baker’s films.) In To take offa vérité-inspired slog that stretches over a long day in New York, an undocumented Chinese restaurant delivery boy named Ming Ding struggles to tip enough to get a loan shark off his back. He brings order after order to the apartments of clients who range from polite and perfunctory to pissed off and racist. (“Don’t you speak English?” one scoffs.) The relationship is one of mutual resentment and disinterest; Ming Ding needs just enough of these interactions to achieve his goal. Other Baker films explore marriages of convenience that take place in the legal gray zone – such as the 2008 partnership. Prince of Broadwaybetween West African men who sell counterfeit bags and the Lebanese man whose downtown storefront he offers them as a showroom and stock location in exchange for a share of the proceeds.

Ani’s mistake is to see her relationship as a luxurious version of the last, a marriage of convenience in a sable fur coat. Actually, it’s the former: a straightforward hierarchy of the server and the one being served. In her mind, she is a hustler who knows her worth; why wouldn’t she join Ivan’s family? It is up to the crooks to inform her. When the henchmen show up at Ivan’s mansion and tell him that his parents are on their way from Russia to have this marriage annulled, Ivan is so scared that he runs off on foot and leaves his wife to the irritated Armenian fixer Toros (Karren, an old Baker’s employee). Karagulian), Toros’ brother Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov), the young Russian they brought along to help. ‘You don’t understand. He disgraced his family by marrying someone like you,” Toros shouts at Ani. He threatens to have her arrested. ‘I’m sure you already have a criminal record. One, two, three, you’re in jail” – and calls her a “whore” and a “prostitute.” He is also the first to agree with her: her husband is a nightmare. “I’m telling you, you don’t know this man,” he says. “I’ve been dealing with him since he was six years old.”

So Ivan is gone. His parents have not yet been seen. Then Ani and the henchmen are stuck together. By introducing and then removing the richest and most powerful characters, Baker creates a present absence that hangs over much of the film. Neither Toros nor Ani can continue without Ivan: Toros because his bosses will destroy him, and Ani because she cannot give up the fairy tale. After a wild fight scene between Ani and the boys, she almost wins; a pole dancer’s kick is no joke – they accept their mission: find the nest.

They enter Toros’ Suburban and start searching. “He fucked me way harder than he fucked you,” Toros shouts as he, Ani, Garnick and Igor roam the streets of South Brooklyn. Ani grins (“Oh, yeah?”), but it could actually be true. As day turns to night and there is no end in sight, it becomes clear that working for the oligarchs can be hell. Toros despises the child and fears the parents, who have the power to ruin his life; he warns the boys that if they finally catch Ivan, they shouldn’t touch him – hurting the little prince could cost them more than their jobs. Meanwhile, Garnick, who thought his brother had it right, can’t believe how thankless the gig actually is: “I didn’t sign up for this,” he groans. “I want to go back to Armenia!” Igor is separate from the brothers. In some ways he’s more like Ani, a bit of freelance muscle who uses his body to pay the bills. We can see early on that he is attracted to Ani’s defiance, even as she calls him a “gopnik” and a “fag-ass bitch.” Even though he understands the danger she is in better than she does.

Anora is Baker’s strongest film because it has a clearer point of view than its others; by the end, it couldn’t be clearer that Ani and the henchmen share an enemy. Of course, a Russian oligarch is also an easy villain for a filmmaker shy about politics. A tasty choice that neither Democracy Now! nor Ben Shapiro would dispute this. As with all of Baker’s characters, the form of Anora‘s oligarchs come into contact with reality; the exterior of Ivan’s home was shot on a property in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, that previously belonged to the ex-wife of a Russian billionaire. (New York profiled their daughter when she was touted as the “Russian-American Paris Hilton.”) The cartoonish wealth of Ivan’s family, all private jets and mansions, allows for the kind of judgment that Baker’s earlier films avoided. The filmmaker has been skittish about this as always: “If I’m too calculated, like ‘This is my big statement about late-stage capitalism,’ I get a little contrived, I get a little preachy.” he told a reporter. “But it is difficult to ignore this in a country that is becoming more divided by the day.” There’s also no denying that Baker gave himself room to throw a punch.

Ani and Ivan would never go to work. But Ani and Igor, you start to wonder. There is an excitement between the two from their earliest scenes together. Although Toros will never admit that he has more in common with a sex worker from Brighton Beach than with his bosses, Igor is freed from that baggage. He is attracted to Ani. In fact, he recognizes her; Perhaps he sees in her an anger toward the ruling class that he would like to express. As the humiliations pile up and Ani’s dream collapses, Baker positions us to see the scene through Igor’s eyes. We see how he tries to care for her, undeterred by Ani’s bitterness. Late in the film the two are alone. Igor turns to her with words of comfort and solidarity. “It’s good that you’re not part of this family,” he says. Ani has no intention of giving him that: “I did that? to ask for your damn opinion?”