The Tartan

By Lucas Hurley and Holly Wang

Spoilers, do not enter if you are a coward.

Holly Wang: I do want to say that “Anora” is a decent movie. But I don’t think its use of stereotypes contributed to my viewing experience. And in a way, I feel like it’s sort of an overplay of boring and mediocre Russian stereotypes, as well as for sex workers. 

Lucas Hurley: I don’t think you give the characters nearly enough credit. They do start out from archetypes, but I think through the specificity of the performances and the little details that make up their personality, they are given genuine psychological depth.

HW: I can recognize that there is specificity to their performances and details that add something to the story and make them convincing characters, but the characters are just boring, even if they have some sort of dimension to them.

LH: For me, dimension is enough. Ivan’s actor plays immaturity in a way I’ve never seen on film, yet I feel like I’ve seen boys that act this way everywhere in real life. Or Toro and how he somehow spins his tedious hunt for Ivan into a very familiar brand of boomer neuroticism, whining that “this generation won’t work anymore” because strangers treat his weird questions appropriately weirdly. 

HW: I have to disagree with the point you made about Ivan. That is literally the spitting image of THE immature boy who was overly protected by his mother who seems to have all of the power, but the father is actually the one with money. They ship their child off to a different country to “receive better education,” but that is just an excuse for them to not actually parent their child and claim that they are doing what is best for him. But I do agree that Toro’s character is a fairly dynamic one. He is probably my favorite character because at least he’s not boring…

LH: I would ask you where you have seen this in film specifically? I feel you are overstating the importance of Ivan’s relationship with his parents in terms of the overall story — that only really comes to head in the third act, and even then I feel that this is only in support of what Ivan means to Anora.

HW: I can’t find a Western film example, but this is a fairly common social phenomenon in more traditionally Eastern countries. It’s probably due to an overfunction of the patriarchal societal structure. I think in a way, the reason that motivated Ivan to be the way he is, is due to his parents. The reasoning behind his “proposing” to Ani, is that he wants “his parents to suck his d***.”

LH: I don’t know how you can repeat Ivan’s line without laughing and seeing part of the appeal of this movie. I find it insanely funny. I definitely agree with your overall analysis of Ivan, but for me, it’s the little things in between that make his character. When he somersaults backward before having sex with Anora or raps awfully to the candy shop owner for three seconds.

HW: OK. I guess maybe in a way this is a cultural difference between you and me. I have seen this archetype play out so many times in real life, and I have family friends who are like this, so I kind of lose that layer of excitement and novelty that you have.

LH: I don’t see why putting a type of person familiar to you on screen should be boring. Is it not interesting to see this type of person given genuine narrative weight, and criticized the way that they are? 

HW: I don’t think Ivan and his group are necessarily painted as the bad guys, nor does having a good vs. bad feel important for me. I think in a way, he and his group do not exercise any type of agency, and to me, it feels like they are just playing the stereotypes. I mean, would you agree that he did not get any sort of “ending”? He is forced to go back to Russia, but he will probably be fine and rich just in another country.

LH: He does get off scot-free at the end, but I think that’s the point — we do live in an unfair system after all. He isn’t “punished” by the film materially, but he is shown to be a deeply inhuman person in other ways, particularly by how he treats Anora.

HW: Ok, let’s talk about Anora then. I don’t think that we need to agree with or relate to any characters and their lives. But not liking the main character, Anora, made the viewing experience extremely unpleasant for me. Also, I don’t think Anora was portrayed well enough, I know that people can say that “it’s intentional,” but her own personal plot is unclear, and near to nonexistent. We don’t know her reasoning, her mental state, or her story. For a movie that is named “Anora,” we surprisingly know so little about her.

LH: I think that Anora herself is probably the most subjective element of the movie. I can see why many love her over-the-top personality, and I think we can definitely understand her mental state during key events in the story, like the ending. But as a whole, I felt like I never got a hold of her psychologically, and neither did she really understand herself. And that seems to be the point — we don’t always act in the rational ways we expect ourselves to act, and we often let the aesthetics of a relationship become the actual thing in our heads. Because of this, I do find it hard to judge Anora as a character.

HW: This is not to cast judgment, but I think a very big motivation behind her actions is money. I think through her conversations with her coworkers,  the way she left the club, as well as how she acted when Toro and Igor first came to the house — those were her assimilation to power and money. In the second half of the movie, I felt irritated by how much of an illusion she had built in her head. Why hold on to something you know that is never going to happen?

LH: I think your questions and frustrations are the thesis statement of the film — we don’t always have as much control over our brains as we think we do. And I do think that the film in subtle ways is making a statement about the arbitrary notions we have about power. Ivan’s parents spend the movie berating him for his stupidity, yet they won’t let him apologize because they deem him arbitrarily as a better class of person than Anora. I think it can be said that the reason that Anora’s assimilation to power is illusory is maybe because class mobility itself is illusory, not necessarily because of the nature of the relationship itself. 

HW: I can see your point, and I do think this movie paints a real picture of what life is like under capitalism. I find it ridiculous that Anora, Toro, and Igor are actually just working-class people who started a conflict on behalf of the wealthy. In a way, it is harmonious to see them ride in the same car and temporarily share the same goal of finding Ivan, but for different reasons. And those reasons all relate to how they survive in this world.

LH: I actually really like that point, and I hadn’t fully considered it. I agree that the fact that they very much need to find Ivan to survive is very important to how the film is working thematically.

HW: The issue I have with the movie, despite its realism and subtle social commentary, is that I’m honestly tired of seeing American filmmakers portray outgroups they don’t seem to know much about. It almost feels like a Western gaze in some way. I appreciate how Sean Baker actually cast Russian actors, but the story still feels like it leans heavily on distant stereotypes that everyone just sort of accepts. Eastern Europeans are gangsters who only care about protecting their family honor, etc. It just doesn’t do it for me. Sure, not every character has to be the most extraordinary person in this world, but what substance do these characters provide for the movie? Also, the part about the green card marriage fee being $10,000? That’s just not realistic, anyone who knows anything about immigration would say it’s more like $60,000 to $80,000. It’s a detail only an American would think is accurate. I think what I’m trying to say here is that the plot does not feel very accurate and real to me, and maybe this is due to my cultural background being different from the filmmaker’s.

LH: I think that’s fair. For me, the substance for me does not come from the archetypes the characters come from, but how they are performed and how the archetype is ultimately contrasted. Igor, for instance, at first seems like a stereotype of a Russian mobster, but his surprising sensitivity is able to provide a lot of comedy and eventually a good amount of narrative meaning at the end.

HW: I feel like those can be achieved with any set of archetypes. Why did he have to choose these lazy, tiring stereotypes? Also, I am not comfortable with how violence and disregard for women’s feelings and bodies were such a laughing point in the movie. I really try not to criticize white male filmmakers just because they are white and cisgender, but it makes me a little appalled that Sean Baker made a film that made people feel justified to laugh at something like a sex worker being restrained at a house where she thought she was safe. Because maybe you can explain this by saying that he captures the brutal reality of sex work and misogyny, but was it worth it in the end? At what cost?

LH: I think a lot of the humor comes from the expectations the audience has from these archetypes, and how they are eventually subverted in the story. I am also definitely not the person to talk to judge how women are portrayed, and I can see why some would be uncomfortable with that scene. 

HW: Anyway, I give this move a three out of five max. That is all it’s going to get. People need to understand that not all movies portraying sex work are pro-sex work movies. On top of all of it, it was just boring. I checked my phone, maybe an hour and a half in, and wished it would end soon. I was uninterested in their chase for Ivan, because who cares? Everyone knows that in the end, they will be unmarried, she is going to be slapped on the wrist by his mother, and she will leave with nothing.

LH: I would give it a nine out of 10. I very much enjoyed it. When it comes to how it portrays sex work, unless you have specific criticisms, I don’t really know best to judge it on that front either. The sex worker who consulted on the film said she was happy with the result, but I realize that can’t be the end-all-be-all for criticism. But I think there is at least something to be said about a sex worker as a character being given such narrative weight and empathy in such a widely released film, which I don’t think we’ve really seen to this extent before.