Anora Was An Ode to the Female Experience - film analysis
Analyzing the last scene in Sean Bakers’ Anora
Recently, I came across a clip of an interview from one of my favorite film journalists, Kevin McCarthy, with Academy Award winner Mikey Madison on her Best Picture film Anora. I never actually finished the video because, as always, McCarthy asked such a great question that made me see the film in a new light, specifically the very last scene. I enjoyed Anora on my first watch, but I found some scenes to be too long and drawn out and for that, a lot of the magic was taken out of it for me (I also didn’t see it in theatres which completely altered my viewing experience). But after this interview, I truly took the time to analyze certain aspects of the film. McCarthy’s question was: “What is the emotional difference that [Mikey] saw between Ani and Anora, because as [he] watched the film [he] felt like there was an interesting difference between them, and [he’d] argue that at the end of the movie…she becomes Anora as she breaks down.”
The changing of a name is so telling to a character’s core and intentions, and through this, I came to the conclusion that Ani is a persona. Ani is in the clothes she wears, the tinsel in her hair, her job, the way she speaks and carries herself. Ani is a part of her that she had to grow and construct as she aged. But I think Anora is the real her, raw and unfiltered. Anora is how she grew up, it’s her beliefs, her love, her heart. Anora is the side of her that she’s kept sheltered and protected for so long with Ani. When they first met, Ivan met Ani. He was only another client and the shield that is Ani was automatic because she had lived in it for so long. I believed she remained as Ani until the topic of marriage was brought up. Her body language changed and she was strictly against the thought of lightly throwing the idea around. For some reason, that was close to her. Marriage was sensitive and meaningful to Ani, and this was the first time in the film that I saw Anora speaking to Ivan. I think that this is when Ani began to realize that the happiness and love she felt when she was with Ivan wasn’t something that Ani experienced often, because love was an emotion reserved for Anora. I don’t think she had let a relationship go this far yet, especially not with someone that she met as Ani. It’s now that the layers of Ani began to shed. She didn’t even notice it, but the further she explored her journey with Ivan, the more small pieces of Ani were being chipped away.
The undoing of Ani and the unveiling of Anora is what, I think, made Ivan’s betrayal so painful to her. Once when he left her alone in the mansion, and again when he agreed to the divorce, Ivan made two lethal hits not to the shield that was curated to take pain in her day-to-day, but to Anora as a person. Ani was the woman that could go home and leave work at work, but she let Ivan see her heart and in turn, her true self. The separation of Ani and Anora is so crucial to Anora’s character because the entire point of Ani is to safeguard Anora’s feelings and never allow it to get to this point, to avoid ever being so vulnerable. In her profession and simply as a woman, it’s an outer shell that is vital to protecting your feelings. I wonder if Ani thought that she was beginning, for a short time, to live the life of a stereotypical 23 year old and run away to fall in love with a stranger. It was an adventure, a journey that she’d live in for a week and then leave behind, as Ani did with so many situations. Only, she decided that, just this once, she’d let someone in. She trusted him in a way that she hadn’t expected to and in return he hurt her heart and obliterated her trust. In that last scene and the scenes leading up to it, Anora has moments of clarity when the weight of her situation becomes apparent, and I think it frightened her more than anything. They were together, she allowed him to see her, to sleep beside her, to marry her, they were each others’ person; It was so detrimental to Anora because of it - Because of the uniqueness of Ivan’s spot in her life and her unfamiliarity and lack of experience with such a downward spiraling circumstance.
I think that the last scene of Anora has the potential to speak to so many women living through these modern “love stories.” To feel so deeply betrayed by someone you put your trust into. Anora has spent so much of her life as Ani, that for her to experience such loss and such hurt at this level did irreversible damage to her faith in others and her heart going forward. And ultimately, I believe this is what the last scene was about. Igor had little to nothing to do with it, as the film started with Ani alone and ended with Anora alone. I think that Anora made a weak attempt at doing the first thing she could do to feel that she had control of her body and mind, something that maybe Ani would do, but it’s not until she’s in the motions that she realizes that she is changed as a person - Anora is changed. That’s why she broke down, her heart was opened for the first time, she let someone in for the first time in a long time (presumably) and he destroyed what he was given. This is so much more than simply a story of a sex worker or a story of young love, it’s a story of the female experience.