A Steinian Exploration of Anora

Karren Alenier

Anora is a coming-of-age film about a young woman who is deceived about love and truth and what it takes to achieve them. Logic doesn't seem to work. Communications seem a hit-or-miss transmission whether it's because people don't speak the same language, don't speak the language well, the language is offensive, or worse it's not what the listener wants to hear.

Logic and language issues sent the Steiny Road Poet immediately to Gertrude Stein's large inventory of plays which, at a minimum, are abstract and do not follow a logical exchange between characters. She settled on Turkey and Bones and Eating and We Liked It. Steiny characterizes this play of 16 scenes (the scenes are marked I through XVII but VIII is missing—Steiny often messes with logic like this) and two acts as a typical Stein foray into a talking and listening set of encounters. The story concerns a couple with a dog who interact with people living near their countryside lodgings. The interactions range from intimate concerns that might include clothing and sex to life style behaviors like drinking, drunkenness, and attending church.

Herewith Steiny will explore Sean Baker's Academy Award winning film Anora through the lens of Stein's play Turkey and Bones and Eating and We Liked It. If you have not seen the film, Steiny recommends you see it before reading the rest of this review which has spoilers. Sensory overload dominates Anora whether it is language of the body or of the mouth. The primary characters of Anora speak Russian, including Anora who prefers to be called by her nickname Ani. Throughout the film, the audience is barraged with an assault of English cuss words and breaches of polite decorum. Communication rules, both oral and visual, are under constant assault. Additionally, character names are subtly important in this film.

What follows, Dear Reader, is a running plot summation of
Anora, a key word with quote from Turkey and Bones and Eating and We Liked It, and commentary on that portion of the Anora plot and the selected quote from Stein's play.

Anora Plot: The story of Anora involves an exotic dancer/ stripper (American actress Mikey Madison) who is singled out by the 21-year-old son (Russian actor Mark Eydelshteyn) of a powerful Russian Oligarch. At the club where Ani works, Ivan Zakharov, who prefers to be called "Vanya", asks for a private session with a girl who speaks Russian. Ani tells Vanya her Russian is poor because she learned it only to communicate with her grandmother who speaks no English. Supposedly attending college in America, Vanya is living in his parents' mansion in Brooklyn, New York. After one session with Ani, he invites her to the mansion for paid sexual encounters and things escalate quickly.

—Name: I do like a Spanish name a Spanish name always begins with a V.

—Comment: Both Ani and Vanya prefer to be called by their nicknames instead of their proper names. They both insist on their preference. The quote from Stein's play highlights Spanish being a preference of this unknown speaker who absurdly asserts that all Spanish names begin with a V. The V (as in Vanya) is a mere coincidence, but Ani and Vanya prefer nicknames that are Slavic versions of the English  names Nora and John. Keep in mind that the name of the film is Anora. That is the name Ani must grow into.

Anora Plot: Vanya asks Ani to spend a week with him as his girlfriend. It's a paid job and she is intrigued. She is an offspring of poor Russian immigrants living in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach. The money Ani negotiates is a business proposition. However, once the deal is struck, she shrugs it off saying she would have done it for less since she likes him. While she is quietly wowed by his wealth, she is also charmed by Vanya's worldly poise. He comes across as sincere and in love with her. He proposes marriage and takes Ani to Las Vegas for elopement.

Vanya—who is addicted to video games, drugs, alcohol, and sex—looks like he is 16 years old. She, on the other hand, is a voluptuous 23-year-old with street smarts and an alternating dash of innocence.

—Unmarried : He says it is very necesssary [sic] to be young to be young and unmarried and then you can not [sic] do as you please. You can not [sic] go where you please.

—Comment: When Vanya impulsively asks Ani to marry him, she asks if he is serious. He says yes. She holds up her hand and says, "Three carats." He counters, "What about four?" Thus, her defenses dim, and she agrees with one of her friends at the strip club when she goes there to collect her things that she is Cinderella.

Anora Plot: Once they marry and return to Brooklyn, two strongarm men—Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov)—appear at the mansion to check up on Vanya and report what they learn to Vanya's godfather Toros (Karren Karagulian). An Armenian priest, Toros, drops the christening ceremony he is conducting to rush out to fix the latest mess Vanya has created. Toros regretfully informs Vanya's parents who then fly from Russia to New York on their private jet. Meanwhile, Vanya flees his parent's estate.

—Running: He was very restless. He does not like to stand while he picks flowers. He does not smell flowers. He has a reasonable liking for herbs. He likes their smell. He is not able to see storms. He can see anything running. He has been able to be praised.

—Comment: The quote is the preface from Stein's play. It refers to Polybe, the first word of Scene 1. Polybe was the name of a very unruly dog that Stein owned when she and Alice made an extended stay in Majorca. The dog loved to sniff plants in the garden of the house they rented there. The dog often ran away and would not return without being captured. Vanya is like this undisciplinable dog.

Anora Plot: Dark humor ensues as Ani defends Vanya, who she says has gone for help, and beats up in a literal slapstick on Garnik and Igor. Of course, Ani is not stronger than these two men. To protect themselves and calm her down, Igor ties up Ani. When Toros arrives, he tells Ani that they will get this marriage annulled and snatches the diamond wedding ring from her finger. She screams endlessly and Toros grabs a woolen scarf and stuffs it in her mouth.

—Wool:I do not like cotton drawers. I prefer wool or linen. I admit that linen is damp. Wool is warm. I believe I prefer wool.

—Comment: As a sex worker, Ani hardly wears any clothing, even in the cold of New York winter. After she marries, she dresses more carefully and fully covers her body. The woolen scarf stuffed in her mouth belongs to Vanya's mother.

Anora Plot: After she calms down, she agrees to help Toros find Vanya. Ani demonstrates that she takes her marriage to Vanya seriously and wants to find her errant husband so he can confirm that they love each other and that this is a marriage between consenting adults. Toros knows better. Disgusted, he tells Ani that Vanya is immature and dependent on his father's money. Toros then offers to give her $10,000 to walk away from Vanya who was only marrying her to get a green card. She plays along so she can talk to Vanya and to his parents.

—Selfish: You have to carry something a handkerchief will do and more than that is perfectly selfish.

—Comment: It is at this point in Baker's film that Vanya is revealed as a selfish, out-of-control jerkoff. Meanwhile, in searching for Vanya at the Brighton Beach nightclubs, Ani, despite wearing her mother-in-law's fur coat, is shivering from the wind blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. Igor sees her distress and pulls out of his coat pocket the same woolen scarf that Toros stuffed in her mouth. Nonplussed, Ani rejects the offer and then takes the scarf and wraps it around her neck. It's a metaphoric prophesy that things won't go well with Vanya's mother.

Anora Plot: Once Vanya is rooted out late in the night, the quartet find him profoundly drunk at Ani's strip club, consorting with one of Ani's  competitors. Toros decides they will wait until dawn outside the New York court to get the annulment done before meeting the parents' plane. The catch is the marriage happened in Las Vegas, so the judge dismisses the case.

—Drink / Drinking: This is really not wine. It is a concoction of brown sugar and water and fermented juice. I call it wine it is a drink.

—Comment: No matter what you call it, this situation could not be more absurd. Toros believes he will resolve the "fraud marriage" marriage as he calls it. He has the marriage certificate, and he has scheduled an attorney to meet them at the court first thing in the morning. He expects Vanya to be sober by that time. However, the Armenian priest failed to read the marriage certificate and see that the ceremony took place in Las Vegas.

Anora Plot: At the airport, Ani tries to talk to Vanya's parents Nikolai and Galina Zakharov in her pigeon Russian. Galina snubs Ani and Vanya indicates that their marriage is an impossibility. Ani says she won't get on the plane to Vegas that she will fight for a divorce settlement, but Galina says she will ruin Ani financially. After Galina gets her way and the plane returns to New York, Ani tells Galina that her son married her to upset his mother. To this, Nikolai laughs vigorously.

—Son: The son resembles his mother. Don't say it.

Why not.

Because the father does not prefer to hear it. He prefers to hear that the son resembles him.

The son resembles him but he looks like his mother.

They wish him to have every advantage.

—Comment: The cards are stacked against Ani. Nothing she can say will be heard by her momentary parents-in-law or her babyfied husband. She is forced to get on the oligarch's jet and  sign a divorce decree in Vegas. However, her integrity remains intact—she gives up the fur coat and scarf but hopes to wound Galina by saying that her son meant for the marriage to upset his mother. Because Nikolai laughs without malice, Steiny assumes the father is used to this behavior both from his son and his wife.

Anora Plot: Igor is instructed to take Ani back to the mansion, spend the rest of the night there, and, in the morning, have her gather her things so that he can take her home. Igor tells her that he has been trying to protect her the whole time, even when he tied her up. She says no, he was trying to assault her and that he wanted to rape her. He tells her he likes the name Anora because it means honor and light. She says he has an awful name. He says he has a good name, and it means warrior.

—Leave: I could not leave the house as I was expecting the reparation of a mattress.

—Comment: Of course there will be no repair of the wedding bed. Galina and Nikolai have taken Vanya back to Russia. The coda to this film is that Igor has fallen in love with Ani. Steiny then wondered what the name Vanya means. Vanya (and Ivan), one of the many variants of John, means gift of God. Steiny finds this meaning ironic, because it indicates that this young man is a self -important screwup who feels entitled to things he has not earned . Certainly, his mother has imbued this gift-of-God meaning upon her son. To fully close the subject of names, Ani means beautiful.

Anora Plot: After giving her the promised money, Igor delivers Ani to the house she shared with a roommate. Before she gets out of the car, he gives her the confiscated diamond ring. Surprised but defiant, Ani attempts to dominant him by initiating sex. When he tries to kiss her, she breaks down crying in his arms.

—Departure : I cannot understand departure because if you are french [sic] you attend mass.

—Comment: The film ends with no clear resolution. Such questions arise as: why was she attempting to have sex with him? was the sex consummated? did she cry because he tries to kiss her showing her tenderness that was missing in her relationship with Vanya and his parents? would she ever see him again?

While Anora has nudity, sex, language, and dark humor that may offend some viewers, the main character has a clear sense of morality. By the end of the film, she has earned the meaning of her name and matured as an adult.