Anora an exposition of unyielding class divide

Anora is the name of the central character of this movie. She prefers to be called Ani, a sufficiently Americanised name, while she is Russian, and her full name is Anora Mikheeva. Anora means brightness or light, and Ani, in a conversation with Igor, who also comes from underclass circumstances, says that in America names have no meaning. Igor, a Russian henchman who has not cut his roots off like Ani, says that his name has a meaning, which means warrior.

The emptying of meaning from the name was also aspirational, intended to forsake one identity and the past it contained and assume another for a better future.

So, you find people from other countries moving to the US and removing the cultural markers that come with the name. It could be an aspirational instinct of the third-world class.

Ani is a 23-year-old sex worker working at a Manhattan strip club. Her clients are well-to-do. Interestingly, in the movie, she is referred to as a “prostitute” and a “whore”, to which Ani surely protests but never addresses herself as a sex worker. An academic term doesn’t have any standing in industrial parlance.

One night, she is introduced to a young Russian client whose name is both Ivan and Vanya. Vanya was searching for someone who speaks Russian. Ani prefers speaking in American English but acknowledges that she understands Russian and occasionally speaks it.

They both get together well, and Vanya repeatedly says he feels very comfortable with Ani. For Ani, the client is rich, decent, and fair business.

Vanya is the son of a Russian oligarch, and it seems he is quite impressed with himself for being the son of an oligarch. In one of their meetings, as Ani is truly carried away by her client’s huge mansion and exuberance of richness, she asks him about his family, and Vanya finds that Ani is so information-poor that she doesn’t recognise his father’s name — Nikolai Shakarov.

One answer to a dearth of information is to Google it. Ani finds out all over there. Vanya is a childish character not to be mistaken with Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin of the novel, The Idiot. Vanya is on a hedonistic spree with his rich dad’s money, seeking salvation in the American dream, on which Jean Baudrillard says the idea of hyper-reality is built — in other words, strip-tease capitalism.

Vanya and Ani pair up so well, and she is invited to a New Year’s party in Las Vegas. She offers him both exhilarating and consolatory sex. Ani demands extra charges for the vacation party, to which Vanya readily agrees.

Things escalate from here. Vanya doesn’t want to return to Russia to join his dad’s business, and aspires to get US citizenship. He is spellbound by Ani and also America, and says, “God bless America”.

To get hold of a green card, they mutually agree to marry. Ani is enraptured by Vanya’s proposal. She asks for a three-carat ring, and he offers four. Interestingly, in Trump’s America, accessing US citizenship is easier, and it costs only $5 million.

Oligarchs of the world pay; they have the US gold card to gain.

Be it Christianity, culture, or communism, Russia was/is orthodox as always, and Putin has ensured that it glitters as such. Vanya’s parents, particularly his mother, tremble at the news of her son marrying a stripper. The Russian orthodoxy and the American dream clash with each other.

Toros, Vanya’s American handler, who is also a Russian priest, is instructed immediately to round them up and annul the marriage. With two henchmen, he reaches the mansion where both are staying, and the subsequent scenes are generically termed as comedy-drama.

In this hilarity, Ani’s precarity is well brought out. The pain and humiliation that she encounters bring to screen the deeper class divisions.

Finally, even without an apology or remorse, Vanya takes the flight back to Russia as mama’s boy. They mutually settle for a divorce.

Ani returns to New York with Igor. Igor, being from the same precariat class, understands the pain Ani suffered. Igor mispronounces the French word touche. In the final poignant moment, the meaning of touche is amply felt. Capitalism doesn’t offer the libertine life to all.

Damodar Prasad is a media researcher and writer. The views expressed are personal