In Anora, a strong-willed young woman engaged in sex work becomes embroiled in a Cinderella story. Anora, or Ani as everyone calls the titular character, played with mercurial force by Mikey Madison, is a spoiled rich young brat of a mob-connected Russian oligarch (Mark・I am on good terms with Eidelstein). Their whirlwind romance soon creates midnight chaos in Manhattan, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island.
Written and directed by Tangerine and The Florida Project’s Sean Baker, the film is a highly entertaining and moving screwball comedy with notes from Preston Sturges and Federico Fellini. Filmmakers like Baker have always been acutely aware of class and economics, wholeheartedly accepting that love and romance, with its joys and tragedies, are transactional. But Baker also takes notes from sex workers, something few have done before, to make such stories ring true and authentic.
“He’s looking to engage with the community, not the rest of us,” Toronto-based writer and performer Andrea Werne told the Guardian. She is the author of the sex work memoir Modern Whore. She is also the lead dancer and escort that Baker appointed as a paid consultant during the production of Anora. Werhun advised on the script and Madison’s incredible performance, providing vivid details that Baker incorporated into the film. The film is now being touted as a strong contender for an Oscar after winning the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. When Baker accepted the award in May, she dedicated it to “all sex workers, past, present, and future.”
Sex work frequently appears in Baker’s films. Sex work is the job that unites a group of cheerful women in the thrilling slice-of-life comedy “Tangerine.” It’s a fringe but dangerous undertaking for the single mother in the heartbreaking drama “The Florida Project.” And that’s just another side plot in “Red Rocket,” a character story set in working-class Texas. These movies tend to keep trauma at bay. Because there are many other depictions of sex workers that solely focus on victimizing, if not vilifying, sex workers. Instead, Baker explores all the other emotions that come with just being human, which sadly feel exceptional when telling the stories of sex workers. And he achieves the nuance and sensitivity that comes from working collaboratively with the people who are the subjects of his films.
“That’s why his work really speaks to sex workers,” Wern says. “I feel like we’re watching his efforts. He always finds human stories. He always finds funny stories, but they’re so great at humanizing people, especially marginalized people. That’s the important part. If you can find something interesting, that’s very powerful.”
Like Baker, Werne leans toward comedy, both in conversation and in her work. She’s a performer in movies and online content who tends to play the bitch with hints of knowing satire, but you can occasionally catch her being a total Jim Carrey. . Her humor also informs Modern Whore, in which she shares stories with customers who can be comforting, trusting, frustrating, or even dangerous. , offers an astute look at the society at large that still stigmatizes the world’s oldest profession. When Verhun comically expresses her indignation, she finds the humor without losing sight of the tragedy.
We’re having this conversation while Verhun is sitting in the makeup chair on the Toronto set of the feature film Modern Whore, directed by her regular collaborator Nicole Bazwin. Baker will serve as executive producer.
The book was self-published in 2017, before Penguin Random House released an expanded (or rather, “enhanced”) edition in 2022, and is a collaborative effort. In it, Wern shares provocative and insightful anecdotes from her time working as an escort and then a dancer at a Toronto strip club. She writes about satisfying curious fantasies and fighting to maintain boundaries with entitled clients, and explains why sex worker trauma doesn’t automatically mean consumption . Those stories and observations are combined with elegant, captivating, and artistic portraits of the author, composed and photographed by Buzzin.
Andrea Wern. Photo: Nicole Bazin
Wern plays a version of himself in the movie “Modern Whore,” which is scheduled to be released next year. This hybrid documentary combines talking head interviews with highly dramatic reenactments, framing excerpts from Werhun’s memoir through a genre lens. She appears as a femme fatale or a “prostitute with a heart of gold,” as if reclaiming a cinematic trope.
The book and film Modern Whore deals with the tension between genre and reality, between fantasy and the labor that goes into creating it. That tension is also present in Anora. When Ani is at work, negotiating lap dances and securing payments, her exceptional customer service makes the arrangement seem anything but transactional. She is acting out a fantasy. But everything behind that performance, all that effort, is mundane.
Anora brings labor to the fore, unraveling the mysteries through minute details of daily routines, shifts, and even the Tupperware that Ani eats while at work. Verhun points out that she was actually directly involved in the latter. “Sean asked me, ‘If you walked into the locker room of a strip club, what would you see?'” And I said, “When the dancers eat dinner out of Tupperware during their break, then the floor… You might see me go back to “Oh, I love that!” ‘It’s like that.’
There are many other details and character movements in Anora that will naturally feel familiar to anyone who has read Werne’s memoir. The warm, supportive dynamic between co-workers at a strip club, just like in any other workplace, can be undermined by a sense of cold competition. The sense of ownership some dancers feel towards their loyal customers. and the irrational but stinging sense of betrayal when a “loyal” customer asks for variety from other dancers. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Anora takes away these dynamics from the book, just that when communities are involved in shaping these stories, there is a shared truth. Her story is part of a larger evolution in the representation of sex workers.
Consider the milestones of the decade since Baker created Tangerine. Cardi B went from strip club to reality TV hip-hop star. Sex workers are telling their stories on social media. Remember Asia Wells-King’s infamous Twitter thread (aka The Totissay) about her wild trip to Florida that inspired the movie Zola? Recent films like the Oscar-winning Poor Things boast a more enlightened view of sex work. And we’re now at a point where sex workers are not just consulting on films like Anora that truly represent their communities, they’re making their own films.
“I think there’s a logical next step,” Wern says. “When you have civilians making films about sex workers, it means they’re doing the job of humanizing us, and it opens the door for sex worker creators to make films on the same level.” is.”
“One of the greatest things allies can do is open that door.”
