Anora Explained: Does Anora Really Defy the Cinderella Fairytale? Inside the Ending and Controversy

The Take Film TV Movie

Anora ending explained and analysis, we unpack Sean Baker's bold spin on "Cinderella Stories," deconstruct the working girl trope and why some people were disappointed with the film-- all while...

Transcript

00:00Anora, Sean Baker's new film starring Mikey Madison, has been getting heaps of praise since

00:04it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It takes a new look at a very old profession,

00:09by a few careening days in the life of a vibrant young woman,

00:12and attempts to confront some very harsh realities about her and all of her lives.

00:17But some have questioned if it really manages to subvert those old cliches.

00:22So let's take a deeper look at the film to figure out what it all really means.

00:26Anora follows Annie, real name Anora, but no one's allowed to call her that,

00:31a stripper working in Brooklyn, New York. While performing, she meets Vanya,

00:35a Russian immigrant who has come to the US for school and a party, mostly the latter.

00:40They form a connection because she can understand Russian, though doesn't want to speak it.

00:44Though they on the outside have these kinds of tenuous connections, language, physical attraction,

00:49etc. They're never quite truly on the same wavelength, which wouldn't be so bad if the

00:54relationship had been contained to a night in the VIP room, but it quickly blossoms into something

01:00else. While their differences in nature are more obvious in things like their wealth disparity,

01:05we also see it in smaller moments as well, like when she lifts her feet out of the way of his

01:09vacuuming housekeeper, but he doesn't even seem to register that she's there at all.

01:15But as the time passes by, Annie continues to let herself be pulled in by the fantasy of the situation,

01:21of a rich guy coming in and changing her life. Deep down, she does seem to have an inkling that,

01:26odds are, this won't end up being her happily ever after. But she slowly lets herself slip into the

01:32idea that maybe she did get one in a million lucky. After a few nights together, he offers to pay her to

01:38be his girlfriend for a week. Though we can see that she's starting to fall for him, or rather,

01:42the fairytale idea that she begins to let herself believe might actually be coming true for her.

01:47She does still have her mind on her business and bumps her fee up to $15,000. During a whirlwind

01:57trip to Las Vegas, he proposes on a whim, mostly because he wants a green card, and they get hitched.

02:04Perhaps unsurprisingly, his wealthy parents are none too happy about this and immediately begin

02:09working to undo the situation. In the story, we see the intersection of two very different,

02:14but still stifling environments. Annie's working life, entertaining men for money,

02:19and Vanya's life under the thumb of his own parents. While obviously Vanya is better off financially,

02:24the movie is interested in their shared issue of being trapped within the confines created

02:28by what they do for money, and how it informs their behavior. Annie has learned to preen for and

02:34create a fantasy for her clients so they pay up, but still keeps a level of confidence in herself

02:39outside of that world. Vanya, on the other hand, has totally given himself over to the whims of his

02:44parents. He might claim that he hates being under their thumb, but in the end, he isn't really willing

02:50to do anything that might risk his inheritance. And through Annie's eyes, we get to see the darkness

02:55underneath the fairytale shimmer of Vanya's world. She knew her own world had its problems,

03:00but what she sees from the people in Vanya's life as they attempt to hunt him down

03:04is a new kind of darkness. But before we unpack the ending, we should first take a deeper look at

03:08the history of Cinderella stories to better understand how Anora is attempting to subvert

03:13the trope. The stories we see focused on sex workers thankfully have begun to shift in the modern era,

03:18as the views of the profession itself have begun to change.

03:22I can't believe you hired a prostitute. Sorry, sex worker. You have agency.

03:26Moving away from just having them as background fodder made only used for punchlines or set dressing.

03:31Surprisingly good. Right? I told you so.

03:34So-called Cinderella stories. You give me one example of something that we know that

03:38had happened before. Name someone? Yeah. You want me to name someone? You want me to

03:41like give you a name or something? Yeah. I'd like a name. Cinderella.

03:44Are all about having your fortune changed by a rich guy plucking you out of your misery.

03:49Though, as we'll discuss in a moment, that's not actually what Cinderella's story was about.

03:53When it comes to working girls, we most often see these stories take place in

03:57tandem with the hooker with a heart of gold trope. Pretty Woman still stands as the most

04:01iconic example of this, where we see Edward come to fall in love with Vivian because he

04:05realizes that she's not like the other girls in his life, but also importantly, not like the other

04:10hookers either. I will pay you to be at my beck and call. Look, I'd love to be your beck and call

04:16girl, but you're a rich, good looking guy. You could get a million girls free.

04:20If you want to know more about how the studio forced the creatives to clean up this whole story

04:24to make it a rom-com, check out our video on that movie. These kinds of stories often get flack for

04:28painting an incorrect picture of what the life is like, allowing a false sense of security that

04:33things will always just magically work out well in the end for everyone. Not to mention many of

04:38them resting on the idea that one's life turning around is dependent on some kind outsider coming in

04:44and finding you special enough to save. But Cinderella stories don't have to follow that framing.

04:50Cinderella itself actually doesn't. As we discussed in our video on Cinderella,

04:54though her story has become a bit of a punching bag for some who say that it's just about her

04:59being saved by a guy, that isn't really the case. It's really more about her ability to stay sane and

05:05forward-thinking in a dreadful situation, the importance of never losing her optimism for life

05:10or giving up, and the power of imagination. She does end up with the guy in the end, but that wasn't

05:16really ever her goal. She just dreamed of freedom and happiness. And even her desire to go to the ball

05:22wasn't about meeting him. She just wanted to have one single night off from being her family's maid

05:28and have some fun. And he happened to be there. While he did whisk her off to the fairy tale castle

05:33in the end, all of the actual change in her life came from her own work in action. Her building

05:38relationships with her animal friends so that they were there for each other when they needed each

05:42other most. Her ability to imagine a better world for herself and go for it. Her keeping an ace up her

05:48sleeve. Enora is in many ways the antithesis of the old school hooker with a heart of gold story.

05:53It shows a much more realistic portrayal of how, while this setup might seem like a dream at first,

05:58it can quickly become a nightmare. So how well it does this has been up for debate,

06:03which we'll unpack in a moment. Enora is overall more in line with films like Hustlers and The Menu,

06:08which are more interested in giving the women themselves a voice and focusing on how their work

06:13intersects with other facets of society and how that all affects them.

06:18They stole from everybody. Hard-working people lost everything. And not one of these

06:24went to jail. There is a long-running trend in Hollywood of making stories about marginalized

06:29people and groups without really taking anyone actually from said group into consideration. More

06:35so that they can pat themselves on the back for being open-minded than to actually explore these

06:40stories in a real way. And with movies centering around marginalized characters, there's sometimes

06:45a feeling that people who have the real-world experience of those characters shouldn't share

06:49their critiques because they should just be happy to be represented at all. Which is obviously unfair.

06:55Enora thankfully doesn't fully fall into this category. They did consult real-life strippers

07:00about their work and lifestyles for the film. And many who have genuinely lived that life did see

07:05some version of their own experiences reflected in the film. As essayist Rax King wrote in her review

07:11of the film for Welcome to Hell World, I'm sure plenty of strippers have never fallen in big,

07:15irresponsible, week-long love with a customer. But I'm not one of them. Back when I was a stripper,

07:20I made great money playing the role of the most glamorous and adoring woman in the world.

07:25And I wanted most of my customers to agree that the exchange ended there, just like most of Annie's do.

07:30But damned if there wasn't a stubborn, needy little damsel crouching low in my spirit,

07:34who believed that she might find the prince of her dreams in the VIP room.

07:38But of course, no group is a monolith and some other workers have raised issues with the movie

07:43that have seemingly been ignored by critics and larger audiences because it doesn't quite fit with

07:48the empowering instant classic trajectory that the film has been on since it premiered.

07:52While the movie does as a whole seem to desire to focus on Annie's experiences,

07:56there are times when it pulls back and shows that, for all it might want to subvert those old tropes,

08:02it hasn't quite escaped them. Take the scene in which Vanya ditches Annie when his parents'

08:06henchmen show up to the mansion. She's left all alone to fight off three scary men,

08:11but it's played for laughs. As Merla Cruz wrote for Angel Food magazine,

08:16she may be fighting tooth and nail for control over her life, but the scene circumvents empathy for her

08:21by inviting the audience to laugh at the screwball energy between her three captors. I mulled over the

08:26possibility that my fear in those moments, like Annie's, was entirely internal, contained in my

08:32corporeal form, and emptied of the potential to provoke sympathy or intervention from the people

08:38around me. Not every story on screen has to be one-to-one with reality, but when stories are

08:44focusing on marginalized groups and made by people who are not a part of those groups, it is important

08:49to take a look at how things are being framed and where outside biases might have crept in. Looking at

08:54movies through a critical lens doesn't mean you're a hater, that you think everything is bad, or that

08:58you're always looking for a problem. It's just a healthy part of experiencing media. And it's more

09:04complex than figuring out which side is right, if the movie is all good or all bad, and more just

09:10about thinking fully and critically about the stories we're presented. While Annie is just a character,

09:15her story does intersect with real people's real lived experiences. So where does that leave us?

09:21In the end, the big question for Annie isn't about choosing forever love over money,

09:26or getting swept away by a rich guy and getting both, but instead having to grapple with the

09:30reality of how money and power function, and how they work to keep everyone in their place.

09:36While Annie fights the annulment at first, the combination of the pressure from his powerful

09:41parents, and the dawning realization that he's not at all the Prince Charming she had imagined,

09:46deflates her back down to reality and leads her to eventually relent. Her final scene isn't with

09:51Vanya, but instead with Igor, one of the henchmen sent to look for Vanya. They have a connection as

09:57two people whose lives are at the whim of the wealthy, doing whatever it takes to keep them happy

10:02so that the funds continue to flow. But even in that, they're not totally similar. Igor uses brute force

10:08against others, including Annie, to actively push for whatever the wealthy want. She never hurts

10:14anyone but herself. There's also some contention around the film labeling itself as a love story.

10:20It's clearly not between Annie and Vanya, but we also don't really get to see Annie come to love

10:26herself, though there are signs that she's finding a new level of self-acceptance in the end. Instead,

10:31maybe it's about being in love with the idea of love, the fairytale dream of instant spark love

10:37from the movies, and how hollow that actually turns out to be. The film isn't perfect, but it does

10:44manage to paint an engaging vibrant portrait of one young woman's journey through a false fairytale,

10:50coming out the other side not necessarily happier, but with her eyes more open to reality.

10:56That's the take! Click here to watch the video we think you'll love, or here to check out a whole

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