Anora, Kardashians and the Widening Wealth Gap
*Slight spoiler warning for the movie Anora. I say “slight” because I think the viewer would see the spoiler coming anyway...*
Recently, the Kardashian family partook in one of their favorite pastimes: renting out A-list celebrities for their kids to hang out with and post on Instagram. I guess this is sort of like the Discovery Zone for children of the One Percent. The latest arrangement? Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo for a private home screening of Wicked before it even hits theaters. I loled and nodded along in anti-billionaire agreement while scrolling the commentary on Twitter/X as the wild group photo made its rounds: “Rich people used to be better about not flaunting it in our faces” said comedian Gianmarco Soresi, to which someone else replied, “it’s been too long since the French revolution.”
This – along with general daily thoughts and grumblings about inflation, wealth disparity and rising cost of living met with stagnant salaries – was already rolling around in my brain as I sat down to watch Anora. It’s been a while since I really felt myself let out a breathy “wow…” at the end of a movie. Anora is a highly entertaining, funny, raw and heartbreaking film that skewers class inequality and wealth privilege with a masterful level of skill by filmmaker Sean Baker and his actors (most notably, star Mikey Madison).
The movie is about a 23-year-old stripper from Brooklyn, Anora/“Ani” (played by Mikey Madison) who meets the young son (Vanya, played by Mark Eydelshteyn) of a powerful and insanely wealthy Russian oligarch at her nightclub. After a week of partying and Vanya paying Ani for various levels of company (though they do genuinely seem to enjoy each other during their whirlwind romance/hijinks), the two impulsively get married in Vegas.
Now this is where the “spoiler that I think people would see coming” kicks in… the marriage… well, does not work out. While it might have been enjoyable to see these two crazy kids from opposite parts of the world (both geographically and socioeconomically) make it work, the second Vanya’s influential parents get wind of the news in Russia (only hours later), it is obvious to everyone – except Ani – that the marriage and their week of bender bliss is over.
When Vanya’s “guardians” that are employed by his parents to keep him from fucking everything up (though they clearly failed here) show up, that’s when the movie shifts in tone. Though still funny and entertaining, things get kinda ugly. But when the parents show up from Russia, that’s when things get really gross: you see clear as day how Ani – and anyone like her with no “real” social influence, power or wealth – is completely disregarded and discarded. They don’t view her as a person worth speaking to or engaging with, only a problem to be taken care of.
When the dad/powerful Russian oligarch aforementioned bursts into laughter at Ani’s insults towards his wife in the last scene with the family, it’s not just that he “finds her amusing.” It’s that Anora’s like a TV show or a cartoon to these people – fleeting, silly and ultimately inconsequential to their grand empire.
Ani, still holding onto this chance at a better life, repeatedly begs Vanya to tell his parents they’re not going to get an annulment and that they love each other. Finally, after asking if they are really going to get a divorce, Vanya shouts at Anora: “Of course! Are you stupid?!” It cuts like a knife when he finally says it, even if we already knew he was thinking it and that it was indeed the reality here. Of course this life, this world, was never hers. Of course he played with her emotions and dreams for sport, like another one of his video games.
What was potentially a gamechanger for her future was just another week for him. The obscenely rich get bored with the standard pastimes available to them and can use their resources to create new ones. (I’m also thinking of That Moment with Roman on the baseball field in the pilot episode of Succession.) When you can buy a person (pay them to do whatever you want), they’re just another commodity, right? These are the kinds of playgrounds that only immense wealth can buy – like marrying a young stripper and promising her the world when you don’t mean it, or hiring a famous celebrity to wear pajamas and watch a movie on your couch with your kids.
There’s a scene during the party week before Vanya and Anora get married where he pays for them to get massages in a luxurious high-rise hotel. As they lie face down on massage tables, Vanya asks her, “Are you happy?” She giggles and says she is, then she asks, “Are you happy?” Vanya laughs gleefully and responds in his thick Russian accent: “Yes! I’m always happy!”
And of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be?
Came back to read this after finally watching!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻