If you want to be a good henchman, you’ve got to lack a certain emotional depth. It’s a trope that flourished in crime films because it flourished in real life. Ever since people with ambition and means started enforcing their will on others there have been blunt, brutish lackeys to make it happen. If you stick on a film noir, gangster flick or any number of movies about spies or vigilantes, chances are you’ll meet a dozen henchmen by the end of the first act. By definition, few of them are afforded self awareness, doubt or a perspective on their lack of agency in a ruthless hierarchy.
In Anora, Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning blend of fairytale elopement romance, sly class comedy and breathless crime caper, we get to know three distinct henchmen, but not until our heroine has completed a whole rags-to-riches journey in the first act – capped off with a Vegas wedding.
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To start with, Baker keeps our gaze fixed on Ani (Mikey Madison), a young Brooklyn sex worker whose hardened worldview melts when it meets the boyish affection of the spoiled, effusively horny oligarch heir Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), who dreads returning to Mother Russia where he’ll be forced to join the family business. Vanya fetishises the freedoms and opportunities of America (forgetting that he can only access them with his father’s Russian money) and despite his praise and affection for Ani, he ultimately sees his sex-worker wife as an extension of America’s promise of purchasable gratification. When the threat of his parents’ discipline finally arrives on his NY doorstep, Vanya barely hesitates before fleeing Ani in fear of their wrath.
His parents can only keep tabs on their son’s behaviour if their hired hands perform their duties. In charge of Vanya watch is Toros (Karren Karagulian), who’s both an Orthodox priest and the kid’s godfather. In his employ is Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), a fellow Armenian, and Igor (Yura Borisov), who most resembles a one-dimensional henchman but surprises us with a slow-burn empathy for the increasingly sidelined Ani.
From the moment Toros discovers Vanya’s marital situation, he orders that the honeymooners receive a visit from the goon squad. Once Vanya flees, his street-smart wife is forcibly restrained to prevent her from further violence (Ani’s body count after 10 minutes with the henchmen: Garnick’s broken nose, Igor’s bitten neck, Vanya’s trashed mansion). As Anora turns its back on Ani’s too-good-to-be-true courtship, it feels like she’s being punished for her uncharacteristic romanticism. It’s here that Baker makes his incisive class commentary – that you only get true solidarity with people facing the same hierarchical hardships as you, but those hierarchies are designed to stop you from clocking your collective strength.