Sean Baker was at home in Los Angeles writing the script for what would become his new movie, “Anora,” and he needed a little inspiration. His title character, Ani, had seen her circumstances change wildly — a first-generation Russian American sex worker, she finds herself in a chaotic romantic relationship with the son of a Russian oligarch and living in his gaudy, palatial home in Brooklyn.
For Baker, the house needed to be just right — to look like a place a Russian billionaire would stay when in New York. Baker wanted “the biggest and best mansion in Brighton Beach.” “I Google, and this thing pops up,” Baker says. “It’s in Mill Basin, and it happened to be owned by a beautiful Russian American family who purchased it from the Russian oligarch it was designed for. They were proud of their home and wanted it shown on the big screen.”
Baker’s films have long explored American communities that other directors might not touch: the dingy after-hours L.A. of “Tangerine,” the destitute Disney World-adjacent sliver of Orlando of “The Florida Project,” the sunbaked and downcast coastal Texas of “Red Rocket.”
Along the way, he’s earned a reputation as one of the most boundary-pushing filmmakers of his generation. But riskiness comes at a price: For all their virtuosity, his films have yet to break through to the mainstream. “Anora,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, is likely to change that. With a big, beating Brooklyn heart, “Anora” is both his best and his most accessible film. And it’s rooted in a less gentrified corner of New York few filmmakers have touched.
“When it comes to anything that Sean wants to do, it’s always places that people have never seen before,” says actress Samantha Quan, a producer of “Anora” as well as Baker’s romantic partner. “Perhaps some places people would never normally want to go.”
Now Baker is exploring Brighton Beach, the robust Russian-expat community in South Brooklyn. Ani’s journey takes her from the downmarket Brooklyn strip club where she’s been working to the very height of luxury. And then, just as suddenly, she’s kidnapped by some Russian goons and forced to race through the neighborhood’s underbelly in a desperate search for her missing beau, who is on an epic bender. His billionaire parents, learning about their son’s relationship with Ani, are irate, and they’re making the trek to the U.S., with their jet landing at any moment.
Baker describes his film as “a roller coaster of tones and even genres.” It begins as a romantic comedy, then becomes a thriller, then “a madcap comedy that’s almost sitcom-level humor.” In other words, it’s a movie with as much going on as an outer-borough neighborhood, merging infinite possibility with oddity and only-in-New York strangeness.
Mikey Madison (r.) with Mark Eidelstein in “Anora.”
Neon
Baker’s inclusive vision was the result of careful, absorptive study. Though he studied filmmaking at New York University and has lived in the city, Baker knew little about Brighton Beach. So to learn about all sides of the community — from the grotty nightclub to the luxe high life — he set up shop in Brightwater Towers, a condominium across the street from Coney Island.
The film was shot in early 2023, but Baker and producers Quan and Alex Coco spent September 2022 exploring and the neighborhood. “During the crawl” — Ani’s dark night of the soul exploring South Brooklyn — “a lot of the restaurants we shot in were places we had visited often,” says Coco. “So we were like, ‘We have to shoot at that Russian dumpling place.’”
Both producers had worked with Baker before and were familiar with his process — one made famous by the 2015 film “Tangerine,” which was shot on an iPhone. Baker’s productions are so lean that his “Red Rocket” leading man, Simon Rex, once described that movie as “a glorified student film.”
“Maybe we should be embarrassed,” Baker says, “but I took that as a compliment.”
“We work very small,” says Coco. For a scene at the iconically gauche-glam nightclub and restaurant Tatiana — where the surf and turf will run you $99 — only five crew members went inside. “In a lot of cases, we have permission, but we don’t have a permit. We’re able to do this very stealthy.”
New York is well suited to the Baker approach. “There’s a little more flexibility with shooting,” Coco says. “People don’t really mind you as much, and the cops are a little more lenient.” And the stealth with which the crew operates in plain sight is less for the purpose of secrecy but more to avoid altering the environment. “It’s great when you soak up all of that life in the film,” Coco says, “by not affecting the location.”
When Baker began the project, he knew he wanted to make a film about Russian Americans, but he hadn’t thought to center it on sex work. Once he started imagining Ani as an exotic dancer, he realized he had no idea what her workplace would look like. Then location scout Ross Brodar found HQ KONY, the club in which Baker shot. “It was way more of a lap-dance club than a pole-dancing club,” Baker says. “And I was able to write with that in mind.”
Ani is a performer of sorts, but she isn’t doing so for a crowd; her work is targeted at whatever one person is in front of her. She’s a master of tactical intimacy, and a scene early in the movie breaks down her process. “We try to show the audience how good she is at her work and what she needs to do on a nightly basis,” Baker says. “She has to essentially move from client to client and, within a few seconds of meeting somebody, read them.”
Mikey Madison, who plays Ani, spent time in strip clubs observing before shooting began. Then Baker shot what became the film’s opening five minutes over a half-hour as Madison worked the room in a live-club setting (with background actors). Baker used a telephoto lens and directed Madison through an earpiece. What results is a sequence in which we see Ani’s approach from every angle — both her knack for flattery and the subtle anxiety and vulnerability undergirding each interaction.
Editing the scene was a complicated proposition. “I had to whittle it down,” Baker says of the scene. “But we have five minutes of watching Mikey in character, holding her own.”
Madison, too, lived in Brighton Beach during preproduction. “She wandered around and absorbed everything,” says Quan. Madison studied Russian as well as lap dancing. Because her character speaks the language but is embarrassed at her lack of fluency, Madison had to master not only Russian but also her character’s halting affect.
“Supposedly, her accent is very accurate for somebody who is first-generation,” Baker says. “According to the people on set, the accent is very childlike and cute.”
That’s the kind of reaction that Baker is looking for, as there’s one demographic he wants to please the most. “It’s very important for us to always have the locals give us a thumbs-up when they see the film,” he says. “If we’ve nailed the essence of these communities, then we’ve done it right.”
