How Do Sex Workers Think of Anora?

For the past ten months—from winning the Palme d’Or to taking home an Oscar yesterday—Sean Baker and Mikey Madison have repeatedly thanked the sex worker community in their acceptance speeches, saying that this film was dedicated to them. So, how do sex workers think of Anora?

I happened to come across a review written by a sex worker who works in L.A. with years of industry experience, and I found many of her perspectives and analytical angles quite interesting.

To begin with, let’s summarize the conclusion drawn by the author, Marla Cruz: she argues that Anora’s portrayal of SW life is "a mile wide but only an inch deep." In other words, Sean Baker’s depiction is superficial and inaccurate, treating the stripper protagonist as an object rather than a subject, thereby reinforcing outdated stereotypes about the community.

Where Exactly Does Anora Misrepresent Reality?

The first point the author highlights is Ani’s complete lack of a professional persona, something that should be a fundamental skill for any sex worker to balance their work and personal life. As Cruz puts it:

Sex workers who perform the emotional labor of romance often curate a persona, a psychological buffer between how we feel and how we want our clients to feel.

Yet, Ani does nothing of the sort: she uses her real name at the nightclub, she exposes her authentic self to clients, and she plays the role of a “horny American girlfriend” for the wealthy heir Vanya—only to quickly entangle herself emotionally in this fabricated scenario. To the author, Ani’s lack of self-protection, her sincerity and naïveté, are simply unbelievable.

The second inaccuracy the author points out is Ani’s recklessness: she never considers the possibility that Vanya’s parents might forcibly intervene in her marriage, nor does she take any precautions against such an event. She flaunts her relationship with Vanya publicly, attending high-profile events like NBA games without hesitation. She never even thinks to ask whose name is on the deed of the lavish mansion they live in—a crucial oversight that later leads to her being kidnapped in what she had assumed was her own home.

The author comments:

I assumed a woman who worked the club with her seasoned charisma would have already learned what I know from years of experience: there is very little room for error in the sex industry. One lapse in judgement can cost us dearly. Instantaneous and unerring discernment is our most important defense against men who prey on our vulnerabilities. This lesson comes early in the working lives of many sex workers through both personal experience and by witnessing the abuse, exploitation, and unjust deaths of our colleagues.

The congratulatory consensus from Ani’s coworkers as she cleans out her club locker strikes an outlandish tone. I could not believe a room full of sex workers in Manhattan, the epicenter of capital and its inherent inequalities, would not include one soul who notices that the dramatic power imbalance in her new marriage could pose a threat to her safety.

The author also points out several suspicious details: someone who has worked in Manhattan’s sex-work industry for years has likely encountered enough wealthy patrons that they wouldn’t be so easily dazzled by a rich playboy like Vanya. Additionally, the line spoken by the enforcer Igor near the end of the film—"I prefer your real name Anora"—made the author want to vomit, because this is precisely the kind of cheap trick men use to feign intimacy with sex workers.

Ani as an Object: The Problem with Anora's Perspective

The author watched Anora in a theater surrounded by a general audience, and she notes several aspects of the film’s presentation that made her uncomfortable:

1. Ani’s resistance against the three enforcers is exaggerated to the point of absurdity.

This issue is tied to the film’s perspective and storytelling approach: in the living room kidnapping scene, Baker does not adopt Ani’s viewpoint to convey the inherent terror of the moment. Instead, he relies on wide-angle shots and portrays the enforcers as clumsy buffoons, turning what should be a harrowing event into a slapstick comedy.

One detail in this scene triggered a visceral memory for the author: when Igor improvises and uses a phone cord to tie Ani’s hands behind her back, she was reminded of a client who once tried to forcibly keep her in his hotel room after their time was up. She recalled the way he gripped her arm while scanning the room for an impromptu weapon—something, anything, that could be used to completely overpower her.

Yet, in the theater, when this moment played out on screen, the audience laughed.

Perhaps, to them, the sight of a half-dressed woman "hysterically" fighting back against men twice her size was just funny. This lack of empathy for Ani was undeniably shaped by Baker’s directorial choices.

2. Ani’s portrayal is shallow and clichéd.

Ani appears to fundamentally despise her own work. The moment she becomes a "temporary girlfriend," she begins to distance herself from her sex worker identity, immersing herself in the role of a doting wife. After marrying Vanya, she becomes outright offended whenever anyone references her past profession. By the end, when everything has fallen apart, the most biting insult she can think to hurl at her former mother-in-law is:

Your son hates you so much that he married a whore to piss you off.

So what was Ani’s dream, at its core? A class leap without labor. Perhaps she had deeper motivations, but Baker’s careless writing fails to provide any evidence of them. The character lacks depth, making it difficult for the audience to truly empathize with her. As the author sharply puts it:

Ani's trajectory hews closer to the dumb sluts who get whacked first in slasher films than the Pretty Woman figure who stumbles upon a client ready to take care of her in the ways he knows best.

Ani cries and screams her way through most of the film, yet it is only after she has lost everything and is left broken that the film finally invites the audience to empathize with her.

As the author comments:

I’m anxious for Ani to get out of the car, go inside her home and take solace in the ability to cry or sleep or eat, whichever one she needs most urgently, on her own terms. She has been isolated without the dignity of privacy for too long.

But what did Sean Baker choose instead?

He chose to have Ani crawl into Igor’s lap upon seeing that he had kept her wedding ring. The audience finally gets to see Ani completely shattered. But this moment is merely another tired regurgitation of a harmful societal stereotype:

Sex workers are crude, impulsive, oversexualized, and only truly ‘human’ when they are suffering."

What does such a portrayal ultimately achieve? It further cements sex workers in their already marginalized position within society.

The author’s final assessment is succinct yet scathing:

In Anora, the sex worker is exactly who society thinks she is. The film embodies the dehumanizing consumer fantasy of a devoted worker who loves the consumer so much she does not conceive of her servitude as labor.

As a side note, the author also questions the believability of a key plot point—why would Ani, after being threatened by her “mother-in-law” just a few times, immediately board a plane to Nevada? The author expands on this skepticism:

"What does Ani actually have to lose? She already abandoned her entire life for a man she had known for just ten days."

When the stakes are raised but the protagonist’s buy-in remains unclear, Ani’s sudden loss of resolve feels like weak writing—far below the standard of an Oscar-winning screenplay.

Personally, I’ve enjoyed several of Sean Baker’s past films. Criticizing Anora purely for its explicit scenes feels reductive. However, this film lacks the warmth and empathy Baker demonstrated in Tangerine and The Florida Project. If this is the direction he plans to continue in, I’d rather not watch his future works at all.