ERIC WESTERVELT, HOST:
Sean Baker always wanted to make a movie set in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brighton Beach and Coney Island. He and a collaborator were drawn to stories of Russian Americans living there.
SEAN BAKER: It just took us about 15 to almost 20 years to figure out what the plot would be. But now we're here.
WESTERVELT: Here is an understatement. Try rave reviews and a prestigious Palme d'Or for Sean Baker at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The plot of his new movie "Anora" follows a young woman who gives lap dances at a Manhattan strip club. One night, her boss asked Anora or Ani, as she goes by, to take care of a new client, a young, wealthy Russian.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ANORA")
MARK EYDELSHTEYN: (As Ivan Zakharov, speaking Russian).
MIKEY MADISON: (As Anora MikheevaI) I can speak Russian. I just prefer not to, but you can go ahead and speak Russian. I'll understand.
EYDELSHTEYN: (As Ivan Zakharov) I not understand. What the [expletive]?
MADISON: (As Anora Mikheeval) OK. (Speaking Russian).
EYDELSHTEYN: (As Ivan Zakharov) [expletive] (laughter).
MADISON: (As Anora Mikheeval, speaking Russian).
WESTERVELT: With that awkward first encounter, a relationship of sorts begins, one that could give Ani's life a makeover. But writer-director Sean Baker doesn't traffic in fairy tales. Just take another of his acclaimed dramas, "The Florida Project," about children growing up poor in a hotel in the shadow of Disney World. Like that movie, "Anora" is gritty and enchanting, and the title character is something of a mystery, which is what Baker wanted.
BAKER: I don't really ever flesh out my backstories just because my stories usually take place in the present, and I just want the audience to be in the present moment. I do, of course, have a little bit of detail that comes through. You understand that she is first-generation. She is ethnic Russian, so she's from one of the post-Soviet countries. Her mother came over when she was a teenager or even younger, and Ani seems to be the breadwinner.
WESTERVELT: Let's talk a little bit about the relationship between Ani and Ivan or Vanya, the son of a wealthy Russian. I mean, they seem to switch between having a very transactional relationship, all business, and then having something else. Is there a genuine connection between Ani and Ivan?
BAKER: I believe so. I mean, Ivan is 21 years old. Ani is 23. They're both young people. And I think that for her, she finds him to be a charming, fun individual who has a life that she desires. And I think Mikey Madison, who plays Ani in the film - we had a lot of discussion about where she is in her life and whether or not she truly is in love with Ivan when they get married in a very impromptu way in Vegas. And we both came to the conclusion that she may not be in love at the moment, but she sees the potential.
WESTERVELT: I read a quote from your wife, Samantha Quan, also a producer of this movie, and she said, you have always been interested in people and situations that are always there, but people choose not to see them. What does that quote mean in the context of "Anora" and of your body of work?
BAKER: I have to ask her what that meant. I don't know. I think she's referring to the subject matter of my films, that perhaps this is subject matter that is not covered as much as other subject matter in U.S. film and TV.
WESTERVELT: And those are the lives of sex workers and people on the margins, in some respect?
BAKER: I guess so. I've made now eight features, and seven of the eight focus on - you could say marginalized subcultures or communities. I like to see it as people who are chasing the American dream, but don't have easy access to it. They're perhaps an undocumented immigrant, or perhaps they have a livelihood or a lifestyle that has unfair stigma applied to it. And so they have to find other ways of actually pursuing the American dream.
WESTERVELT: Shaun, you've had something of an unconventional path in Hollywood, and you've made it defying expectations of that town. I mean, what got you into making movies in the first place?
BAKER: Well, I've been in love with the movies since 5 years old when my mother introduced them to me by going to the local library in - somewhere in Central Jersey. And they were showing clips from the Universal monster films from the '30s. So basically, Dracula rising from the grave, the mummy getting stabbed with that spear, and then the burning windmill sequence at the end of James Whale's 1931 version of "Frankenstein." And that hit me. The next morning, I told my mother, I want to make movies. Then "Star Wars" came out the next year, and from that point on, I was that cliche of the kid making Super-8 movies, moving on to VHS films, eventually going to film school, graduating and trying to make my first feature.
WESTERVELT: Wow. From age 5 or 6, you knew.
BAKER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, my focus very much changed. I wasn't exposed to much world cinema, so I was exposed to, of course, Hollywood blockbusters and mainstream films, and I went to NYU, thinking I was going to be making the next "Die Hard" or "Robocop" someday. And I think it was my four years here in Manhattan that kind of changed my focus.
WESTERVELT: Well, we're glad you didn't make "Die Hard 20" or whatever number we're on, right?
BAKER: (Laughter) Maybe some day.
WESTERVELT: Right now, just for the record. You have such an affection, even a reverence for many of the places you depict, no matter how sort of shabby, grubby and plain, they can appear on the surface. You managed to find the beauty in them.
BAKER: Well, I see beauty everywhere. And so do my wonderful DPs, my director of photography. There was a long tradition of social realist films that I'm very influenced by, by the way. And there was a time where I believe they started to become a little bleak, and even the look, even the style of the films were very gray. And I think to depict what they thought were the inner lives of people going through a lot of hardship. And I always thought that was unfair because I know if I had somebody make a film about my life, I wouldn't want it to look just gray and drab, even when I'm going through hard times, I still see color, I still see beauty. And I think that we tried to reflect that in the style of the film. We find the color out there. We find ways of framing landscapes that I think allow us to really appreciate that there's beauty everywhere.
WESTERVELT: Were there times when you were going through your own hard times where you can point to and say, but I still saw the beauty around me?
BAKER: (Laughter) I've been through some crazy times, mostly self-imposed. You know, I was in active - very active addiction in my 20s on opiates, and yet there was still the hope that I would pull out of it. And that was the drive to actually make films was one of the primary reasons that I worked to get clean.
WESTERVELT: I don't want to give away any spoilers here, but the end of "Anora" is powerful, and it's really, you know, as affecting as anything I've seen on screen in recent memory. Is it possible for you to touch on - what were you striving for there?
BAKER: Oh, well, thank you. It was a very important scene for me. For me, endings are the most important part of the cinema-going experience because it's what you're leaving the audience with and what they'll be talking about moments later on the sidewalk. For this moment, I think it's a moment of intimacy that we haven't seen earlier in the film. There's a catharsis there. It's been very interesting to hear the interpretations of the last scene. That's how it's designed because it's really not leaving you with any solid answer of what's about to come in Ani's life. It's really up to the audience at that point to sort of write the ending. And it's been really incredible to see that that's what's been happening.
WESTERVELT: That's Sean Baker, writer and director of the new movie "Anora." It's in select cities now. Sean, it was a real pleasure speaking to you.
BAKER: You too. Thank you so much for having me on. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
