Anora Ending spoilers follow.

After the whirlwind story of Cinderella AnoraIt is the first half goes awry with the screwball comedy of the second, the film’s quietly dark ending seems to come out of nowhere. But in a film that takes every opportunity to subvert expectations, the emotional end note seems to be the only ending that can make sense.

Anora sees firecracker sex worker Ani (Mikey Madison) meeting her short-lived husband, Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), one night working at a strip club on Brighton Beach. The son of a dark Russian oligarch, Vanya spends his lavish days, at his father’s expense, drinking alcohol and Call of Duty.

The couple first hits a Pretty woman-a great deal to spend the week together, which turns into a quick trip down the aisle while having sex in Las Vegas. Once Vanya’s family caught wind of the wedding, Toros (played by longtime Baker collaborator Karren Karagulian) and his muscles flexed and the fairy tale collapsed into a slapstick Cronenberg farce . Eastern promises.

Among the mindless henchmen who descend on Vanya’s children’s mansion is Igor (Yura Borisov – whose director Sean Baker described as “the Ryan Gosling of Russia”), a shy Kronk-like character who begins to fall in love with Ani while violently holding her back.

Before the idea of ​​a stripper led by an awkward rich kid came to his mind, Baker thought his next film would be a Russian gangster film. These initial seeds take shape with Vanya’s Three Stooges handlers.

We’re prepared for a certain amount of violence from organized crime films involving Russians, so once they get going, there’s an expectation Anora will take a darker turn. At this point, Vanya, disarming, runs away by pulling up his pants, leaving Ani to fight Igor and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), causing intense damage to the latter’s nasal passage.

But despite the scene’s build-up, nothing bad happens – there’s a less well-executed version that ends with Ani’s death. Instead, their incompetence is reassuring and sets the stage for another surprising change in the story.

As they cruise the Coney Island boardwalk in search of Vanya’s jet-black aviators, Igor’s meaningful glances at Ani suggest another romance is brewing.

By the time Igor shows Ani that he has collected his engagement ring, surrounded by a blizzard of New York snow and listened to by his grandmother’s squeaky windshield wiper, they have a shared understanding. Both live at the whim of the rich.

Ani then begins sex with Igor, but when he pulls her in for a kiss, her hard shell cracks and she breaks down in tears. It’s as if the weight of the last hellish days fell all at once.

There is sex that is and is not transactional in the film – this final scene draws the line between the two, as Igor seems to want the former, while Ani wants the latter.

Yet this moment is completely unrelated to Ani’s sex work, something Baker has placed at the center of his films to destigmatize. The opening scenes of the strip clubs are injected with a sense of fun with the Take That soundtrack, instead of their hackneyed depiction as seedy, demeaning places.

In this context, Ani is wise. But as she leaves the headquarters, she shares her dreams of a Disneyland honeymoon and truly believes she has found a way out.

The arrival of Vanya’s creepy mother – apron strings still tied – contributes to the realization of a system unfavorable to the working class. This isn’t the first film to mark the United States as a land of opportunity, but it does so with a winning quality and empathy for the class positions of its acolytes and sex workers.

The reality of Ani’s dashed hopes finally arrives, as the financial opportunity slips away and her controlling performance collapses.

Once again Anora defies expectations, refusing to give the cheap lift of a triumphant final note. Another movie could have had Ani catching the guy or winning against Russian money, as she briefly tells Vanya’s mother, maybe she could do that.

For a film that keeps you guessing, it’s a fitting conclusion. The moment is so open Baker wrote an epilogue just for the eyes of the actors. But do we really want the easy answer about what comes next?

Instead, after two hours of propulsive momentum, the fact of this melancholy and somewhat disappointing coda gives us insight into Ani’s own feelings at having such monumental hopes dashed.

Anora is now out in US and UK cinemas.

Assistant TV editor

Previously a television journalist The mirrorRebecca now carries out expert analysis of the television landscape to digital spywhen she’s not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of The Bridgerton Chronicles Or The White Lotus to the chaos that unfolds in the different love island villas.

When she’s not binging on a box set, Rebecca’s sightings in the wild include appearances on the red carpets of the National TV Awards and BAFTAs, as well as post-match explainer videos from the reality TV show we all watch.