‘Anora’ | Anatomy of a Scene
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Madison, Mikey (1999- )
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Watch Mikey Madison Take a Mansion Tour in ‘Anora’
The writer, director and editor Sean Baker narrates an early sequence from his film, which also features Mark Eydelshteyn.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.When Ani (Mikey Madison) agrees to meet one of her young strip-club clients, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), at his home, she is taken aback by just how lavish that home is. That’s the setup for this scene from “Anora,” which follows the budding relationship, both transactional and emotional, between the title character, Ani, and Ivan.This sequence takes place before Ani learns that Ivan is the son of a Russian oligarch, and it is crafted to give both Ani and the audience an eye-opening look at the outsize abundance of Ivan’s space.Narrating the scene, the film’s writer, director and editor, Sean Baker, said, “I wanted the camera to essentially be following Ani, but also be seeing the world through Ani’s eyes.” He achieved this by keeping the cuts to a minimum. After Ani rings the doorbell and Ivan answers, the bulk of the sequence unfolds in one shot, following her with a hand-held camera (operated by the cinematographer Drew Daniels) as she marvels over the mansion.“It really sets up the geography,” Baker said, “because the geography is going to be extremely important later on in the film.”Read the “Anora” review.Learn more about Mikey Madison.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More
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Mikey Madison Finds Common Ground With Her Character in ‘Anora’
Mikey Madison, by her own admission, cries a lot — whether she’s happy or sad, that’s how she expresses herself.During our conversation at a Midtown Manhattan restaurant, the star of the Palme d’Or-winning “Anora” told me a number of stories that involved weeping. She cried on the way home from a horseback-riding competition when she was a teenager and realized she would have to choose between life as an equestrian or an actor. (She was too single-minded to do both.) She cried after every single acting class in the early days of her career. She cried after her first Russian language session in preparation for this latest role.But when she was living in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach to shoot “Anora,” Sean Baker’s film about a tough-as-nails sex worker who impulsively marries a Russian oligarch’s son, she found that the tears didn’t come easily. “I was, like, holding it in in a way that I hadn’t done before,” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Am I numb? What’s happening here?’” She ultimately realized it was something different: the title character, known as Ani, was taking hold of her in a way that had never happened in her career. She had heard fellow actors talk about that kind of thing, but had never related to it before.Mikey Madison with Mark Eydelshteyn in “Anora,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.NeonIt makes sense that Ani would exert a certain power over Madison because “Anora” is a monumental film in the 25-year-old’s career. Though she had memorable parts in the movies “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” (2019) and “Scream” (2022) and a crucial role on “Better Things,” the critically acclaimed FX series, “Anora” raises her to a new echelon in Hollywood. Almost as soon as the film premiered at Cannes, Madison was given the “star is born” treatment and declared a potential Oscar nominee. When “Anora” hit the Telluride Film Festival a few months later, a producer told Variety, “I need to work with Mikey Madison ASAP.”The film begins one night at her strip club gig, when her boss instructs her to talk to a patron, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), who asked for a Russian-speaking girl. Turns out he’s wildly rich, and their whirlwind romance leads to a quickie marriage. But when his parents learn of it and send heavies to arrange their annulment, Ani refuses to go quietly. She fights off men twice her size with piercing screams and shockingly powerful kicks. For all that ferociousness, Madison also conveys how Ani’s thick skin is a form of self-defense against a world that rewards those, like Ivan, with easy access to money and finds new ways to punish those who don’t. Over the course of the action, you watch exhaustion seep into her face, which once glowed with the possibility of a fairy-tale ending.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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‘Anora’ Review: A Pretty Woman From Brooklyn
Mikey Madison gives a career-making performance in a Palme d’Or-winning film about the romance between a sex worker and a rich scion.Sometimes a movie actually earns the old cliché of a “star-making turn,” and I’m here to say that Sean Baker’s “Anora” is this year’s star maker. I’ve seen it twice, and both times I left the theater on a high, exhilarated by the performances, the rhythm, the emotional shape of it. The only question that remains — and it’s a great one to have to ask — is exactly whose star “Anora” will make.One obvious (and obviously correct) answer is Mikey Madison, who plays the titular character. Madison is no newcomer; she played Sadie, a Manson family member, in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”; and Pamela Adlon’s oldest daughter, Max, on the terrific FX show “Better Things.”Madison has always been good, an ingénue with extraordinarily expressive features who can play bratty and naïve at the same time. But this role requires her to go for broke, with elements of slapstick, romance, comedy and tragedy, along with dancing in skimpy or nonexistent clothing and throwing a couple of powerful punches. Playing Anora called for both an emotionally rich inner life and a breathtakingly kinetic physicality, all poured into a character about whom people form opinions the moment they meet her. And at every moment, Madison is mesmerizing.The movie is also a star maker for Baker, whose earlier films, like “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket,” have earned accolades and devoted audiences. With “Anora,” though, he has leveled up. (The film won the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May.)Baker is known for making movies about people on society’s margins, frequently sex workers. But this film, which Baker directed, wrote and edited, is steadier and more confident than his previous work. In some ways “Anora” has the most in common with Baker’s 2015 film, “Tangerine,” a screwball comedy about transgender sex workers in Los Angeles, shot on iPhones. But it also feels like a significant evolution in his style, and makes me excited to see what he does next.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
