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This story is from The Conversation

Anora, or Ani as she prefers, is a a young New York stripper who meets and marries the son of a Russian oligarch. But this film is not a fairytale and there is no happy ending. But neither is it a tragedy.

I have studied female webcam performers and how they engage in webcamming as a form of sexual commerce. I saw a lot of similarities between the women I interviewed and Ani. Smart and tough, choosing to engage in sexual commerce as an economic option when few other choices were available.

Ani (Mikey Madison) uses her ability to negotiate a good deal to maximise a once in a lifetime opportunity when she is asked to strip for Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the spoiled son of Russian billionaires. Ani is able to turn that first meeting into a lot more money and eventually a marriage.

Sex workers have long been separated from the main body of the working class by generations of feminist campaigning that situates them as exceptionally exploited and in need of rescue. However, Anora challenges this segregation of sex workers from the rest of the working classes and this is what makes the film special.

The sex work aspect of the film is the vehicle that brings Vanya and Ani into each other’s orbits and while central to the film, refreshingly it is not situated as inherently exploitative. Rather it is presented as a job like a lot of other service industry jobs, better paid than most but with coworkers that can be both supportive and problematic.

Anora is no more vulnerable to exploitation or the demands of servicing of the oligarch’s family than the rest of the characters in the film. Indeed, Ani appears to be a lot more empowered than the cleaners who are tasked with tidying up after the spoiled Vanya and his antics. Maybe, even more so than Igor, Toros and Garnick, the family’s hired strongmen.

Principled workers

Although initially set in a strip club and overtly featuring the exchange of sex for money, Anora isn’t about sex work. It’s a morality tale about class.

After several weeks of partying, culminating in a spontaneous wedding in Las Vegas, Anora has more than a whiff of Pretty Woman. It could have been just another film about a young sex worker meeting a rich client who can help her leave sex work.

However, the film deviates from this as it enters its third act when Vanya’s parents find out that he has married Ani. To their minds, having a sex worker for a daughter in-law is just not on and is a problem that needs to be quickly solved.

As a battle begins to annul the marriage, it becomes clear that Anora is a story about the shallowness and lack of morality of the rich and the honesty and grit of working people. Vanya is childlike and petty, thoughtless and cruel in his endless pursuit of feeling good and doing nothing. His parents are largely absent and, when they finally arrive, are shown to be heartless and manipulative. The most principled behaviour comes from Ani and Igor, the Russian muscle man who is sent to force her to divorce Vanya.

Madison is superb as Anora, with an expressive face that flits between toughness and vulnerability and back again with a captivating fluidity. The chemistry between Igor and Ani is subtle and powerful; their timing is sublime and touching.

Played by Russian actor Russian actor Yuriy Borisov, Igor represents a healthy masculinity in contrast with the shallow Vanya and the bullying Toros (Karren Karagulian), despite appearing to be something of a thug on first encounter. He gently and subtly supports Ani as she fights Vanya’s family and then consoles her when the brutal reality of her brush with the super-rich hits home in the closing scene.

The film is a captivating snapshot of the life of someone selling sex. Ani is savvy and opportunistic but she is also hopeful and romantic. She makes choices that work out and others that don’t. Anora situates sex work as a means out of poverty for Ani and an escape from oppressive wealth and expectation for Vanya. In the end Ani comes off much better, because she has a freedom which Vanya cannot attain.