I Finally Watched Anora.

It's the Tuesday after the Oscars and I'm in line at the Rio Theatre. The night is cold and the air smells like weed. My Oscar ballot picks were a complete bust; I selected only five correct winners out of a potential 23. It turns out, analyzing movies does not directly correlate to knowing what the Academy is thinking. I'd made the journey to the east side of the city for one movie and one movie only. After many self-imposed delays, I was finally going to watch the recently crowned Best Picture winner, along with a plethora of people who didn't think Anora stood a chance.

I avoided watching Sean Baker's latest feature for one reason: It looked boring. I thought The Florida Project was good, not great, and the idea of a Baker story about a stripper and a Russian oligarch sounded thin and predictable. Then, my coworkers started raving about it. They incessantly implored me to watch, but I'm as stubborn as Ani with a ring on her finger. Either that or I was too busy watching every other Oscar contender to find time to watch Anora.

But, after March 2, I no longer had any excuse. Anora won five Oscars, including four of the most prestigious awards—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. Not only was it the big winner, but I was crestfallen because my negligence of this movie directly caused my worst-of-all-time Oscar ballot. Luckily, Vancouver's favourite independent theatre, The Rio, had a perfectly planned schedule, with an Anora showing just two days after Hollywood's Biggest Night.

The theatre was, unsurprisingly, packed. I took the first seat I could find, between a couple on a date and a guy who can only be described as my doppelgänger. Meanwhile, the guy in front of me had one of those bulbous heads that takes up half of the screen, but the theatre was too crammed for me to attempt a move. I just sat up real straight and I could see enough. After a while, the lights dimmed and it was time to watch.

Peliplat is a hotbed for divisive takes on Anora. From Ishika's exploration into what it says about generational trauma, to Tonino's comparison of the movie with Bad Bunny's "Andrea," to Jamie's dissertation on the relationship between Oscar success and female nudity—everyone has a take on the world's most sympathetic stripper. By waiting this long to see the movie, I've surely missed the boat of relevance, but that doesn't mean I don't have at least some observations.

There is a lot to like about Anora. It has a poignant story, beautiful cinematography, stunning performances and accessible themes. Baker showed tremendous growth as a director and he's perfected his cinematic style. Baker has made it his artistic mission to represent the underprivileged in America. This perspective, this promise to keep the working class in the picture, is another reason why Anora is so captivating. I don't think the movie was leagues ahead of The Brutalist, the other top contender for Best Picture, but it was comparable in quality. Considering the future is female, I shouldn't be surprised Anora won and you shouldn't be either.

What's stuck with me the most is the movie's observations on power dynamics. I found it interesting how the movie's characters were controlled by two people who are hardly present. Vanya's parents, Nikolai and Galina, control the action from afar, acting like a Nosferatu-esque couple that creeps closer to New York, bringing consequences to our hedonistic fairytale. They are this looming, ominous, and guaranteed threat that causes Ani's materialistic dream to turn into a nightmare of harsh realities.

Despite the glitz and the glamour of Vanya's lifestyle, the servants to the Zakharov family are never cut from the picture. When Vanya throws a lavish party at the mansion, Baker shows the maids that clean up the next day. The maids are on-screen again, when Ani and Vanya pass the time smoking weed and playing video games. The gatekeeper for the mansion, who, frankly, didn't need to have a part, is given dialogue and decent screen time. The attorney for the Zakharov family is included. Even the annulment lawyer has screen time, lines, and feels the effect of the Zakharov strings. But none of them put up an argument against Vanya, Ani or anyone else. Everybody bends to the will of the Zakharovs and does as they're told because money talks. Baker always keeps the focus on the working class, even when they are being controlled by the omnipresent wealthy.

Then there are the henchmen, the three guys who are tasked with annulling the marriage before Vanya's parents land in New York. These three are the most connected to the Zakharov family and they move with a clear sense of fear. They fear the power that the Zakharovs hold. They fear what they will do to them if they do not deliver on the task at hand. Their power permeates their life. Toros, who also works in the Eastern Orthodox church, has to leave a baptism early because of his loyalty to/fear of the Zakharovs. These strongmen include Igor, whose small rebellion of keeping the ring and returning it to Ani is poignant, although it only reinforces the narrative that these people mean nothing to the Zakharovs. Whereas the ring holds great value to Ani (symbolic and financial), the Zakharovs won't even notice that it went missing.

Ani is the kicking-and-screaming antithesis to the oligarch's way of life. Through her ignorance—and it is ignorance to think Vanya would own the house, that their marriage would be the end of the discussion, that she could fall ass-backwards into a lavish lifestyle without consequence—she upends their status quo. Despite her best efforts to keep her golden ticket, her way out of a life of stripping and living next to the metro, not even her fierceness can untangle the strings attached to the controlling hand. Still, she is a part of the same capitalist system as the others. She gives men what they want, for the right price. If the price is impressive, she'll do just about anything—just like Toros, the housekeepers and the attorney.

When Vanya's parents do show up, they somewhat subvert our expectations. The mother is the harsh one while the father is more reserved. He even finds Ani's intensity funny, as he laughs while she berates Vanya and Galina. It is through their presence that we realize that Vanya is just as much a cog in their machine as the henchmen, the lawyers and the gatekeeper. Despite being their son, Vanya is totally controlled—and his actions in the movie are his form of lashing out; of trying to assert his independence. He almost becomes sympathetic. Almost.

Although we might be interested in seeing where Vanya's story goes next, Baker never leaves Ani behind. At the end of the movie, when we expect to see Vanya berated by his parents, we are left not knowing what will become of him—what punishment he will face. Instead, when Ani walks off the private jet, we stay with her and, just as quickly as Vanya entered her life, he leaves.

I left the theatre feeling powerless. The movie had laid it out clearly that our lives are controlled by the 1% who hold a majority of the world's wealth. It painted us plebeians as pawns in their frivolous games. They speak and we jump. Although I still think I was right in my prediction that the story would be thin and predictable, I forgot to factor in Baker's growth as a director. When he's at his peak, as he is in Anora, he has a deft ability to show us our reality without belittling, undermining or taking for granted the real people that make the world turn. As such, his latest movie shows us the world in a way that is painfully real and of the right now. It's the movie we need in 2025.

For me, Anora was a commentary on the unfair distribution of wealth. It subtly dissected the realities of wealth disparity in the modern world. Baker shows, not in dialogue or cinematography but in action, how a very small minority of the population can control huge swaths of humans. Not to stroke their ego too much, but the Zakharov parents are like the sun. The characters all revolve around them, and they can either bask in the warmth of big houses and nice clothes or they can burn in the family's fury. Despite having such little screen time, they create an omnipresent fear that controls all the action in Anora. It's this use of unseen power that, for me, makes Baker's Anora unforgettable.