2024’s most talked about film has to be Neon‘s Anora, a romantic comedy with a twist written and directed by Sean Baker. The film, which won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, stars Mikey Madison as Anora, a sex worker from Brooklyn whose life takes an unexpected turn when she meets and marries the son of a billionaire oligarch. In my opinion this film is easily best picture of 2024, and currently it’s a hit globally, grossing $29.5 million to date at the global box office.
Towards the end of Anora, their whirlwind two-week marriage ends abruptly, and the final scene may stay with viewers long after they leave the theatre. But what does that final scene mean? Well IndieWire spoke to filmmaker Sean Baker and asked him exactly what it all meant.
What we do know is the inspiration for the ending came from the films influence, Federico Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria,” where prostitute Cabiria sheds a mascara-stained tear at the film‘s end after yet again being exploited by a lover. In Baker’s film, we don’t see Ani’s face in the final shot;
“I always have the beginning, middle, and end worked out before I start writing. That was a sequence we pretty much had figured out in our heads,” said Baker in an interview with IndieWire. “We knew that the snow was going to slowly build and literally keep them basically in like a snowy cave by the end of the scene,” Baker said. “For me, the endings have to have an emotional gut punch. My favorite films have endings that are the most memorable part of those movies… after this long journey, we had to deliver on that end.”
Baker was situated in the car’s backseat with Borisov and Madison, and he said, “This magical moment happened. I don’t know if you remember ‘Nights of Cabiria,’ but in the last shot, she has this single tear. I just remember being in the backseat and leaning over to see if the tears were coming, and [Mikey Madison] does this one single tear, and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe we’re doing this unintentional nod to the film that actually inspired it.’”
“It’s designed in a way that allows for different interpretations,” Baker continued. “I do see it more of it being about her and not really something that she’s giving to him but something in which she’s now regaining the power that she lost entirely throughout this journey. We’re playing with different themes, and one of them is consent, and when he then tries to kiss her in that moment, that’s crossing a line for her. It’s like, ‘No, I’m in control of this moment.’”
If you haven’t seen Anora you can catch it currently at Luna Outdoor Cinema or at Luna Leederville.
Email:neill@outloudculture.com
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