‘Anora’s’ Oscars triumph is a much-needed win for workers, in Hollywood and beyond
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When filmmaker Sean Baker won his first Oscar for original screenplay early Sunday night for “Anora,” a screwball dramedy about a stripper who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, he gave an acceptance speech so heartfelt and complete, heaping praise on everyone from his cast and crew to his distributors and management team, that I wondered if he’d thanked himself into a corner.
If Baker won anything else, what would he have left to say?
I shouldn’t have worried. There would be more awards, four in total for Baker himself: landmark wins for writing, editing, directing and producing “Anora.” And Baker would have plenty more to add.
A successful Oscar campaign makes a series of whistle-stop speeches. Baker’s been delivering them since “Anora” won the Palme d’Or in May. Gratitude can get rote. But Baker never gave the same speech twice, shaping each thank-you into a bull’s-eye aimed at the occasion.
Sean Baker and “Anora” made Oscars history; Mikey Madison and Adrien Brody won top acting prizes. Catch up on the winners, the fashion and what happened at the show.
His Indie Spirit speech rightly noted that independent directors like him stretch one paycheck across years of unpaid work pushing to get a movie made. “We are creating product that creates jobs and revenue for the entire industry,” Baker said. “We shouldn’t be barely getting by.” My entire social media feed posted clips of his cri de cœur covered in clapping emojis. I loved it too. Although for me, that speech was tied with the one Baker gave at the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. Awards where he charmed a roomful of movie journalists by whipping out a film review he had written in high school. It was an impassioned rave for the 1988 horror remake “The Blob,” addressed to the letters section of Fangoria magazine.
At the Oscars, Baker’s speeches were idiosyncratic and gracious. Accepting the award for editing, Baker elevated his fellow nominees by calling the craft “half of my directing and a third of my screenwriting.” Clutching his statuette for director, he put the spotlight on the struggling theatrical business and urged distributors and audiences alike to value the big screen. Loping back one last time for best picture, Baker ceded the microphone to his co-producers Alex Coco and Samantha Quan and popped in only for a 10-second shoutout to the academy for recognizing a truly indie $6-million movie. “Long live independent film!” he whooped.
The crowd whooped back. History was made. Independent film has a new ambassador, a ceremonial sharing — if not passing — of the torch made literal when Quentin Tarantino handed Baker his third prize. For what it’s worth, Baker now has twice as many Oscars as Tarantino, who, to date, has inconceivably only won two of them, both for original screenplay. Hey, maybe Baker will someday get to hand the director statuette to him.
Baker made a point of paying his “deepest respect” to the sex-worker community who inspired the film. Eleven actresses have won Oscars for playing prostitutes. “Anora’s” lead actress Mikey Madison (more on her win in a minute) makes it 12. Of the 10 previous acceptance speeches I can find, no other winners felt comfortable giving a nod to their muses, and I’ll assume Janet Gaynor, who won in 1929 for “Street Angel,” and Helen Hayes, who won in 1932 for “The Sin of Madelon Claudet,” were similarly mum.
“Anora,” Sean Baker, Mikey Madison, Adrien Brody, Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña were the big winners at the 97th Academy Awards Sunday night.
“Anora” is about sex work, yes. But it’s really about work work. The film feels wild and loose when four characters are shouting over each other at once. Yet, almost every scene is a comment on the desperation of struggling paycheck to paycheck in America. While Madison’s Ani fights to stay married into life-changing money, the other minor characters are simply fighting to keep their gigs. Once you’re looking for it, job instability underlines every interaction in the film, from the Las Vegas hotel manager terrified to tell rich brat Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) that his suite isn’t ready, to the nightclub waitress stuck with Vanya’s $800 tab, to the tow-truck driver panicked that the billionaire’s brutes have broken his vehicle. “Been on the job two weeks,” he wails.
Even the Russian minions who strong-arm Ani to get an annulment are a matryoshka doll of servants and masters, with Yura Borisov’s Igor taking orders from Vache Tovmasyan‘s Garnik, who takes orders from Karren Karagulian‘s Toros, all the way up to Aleksey Serebryakov‘s plutocrat Nikolai, who, of course, cedes control to his icy wife, Galina (Darya Ekamasova).
Employment is fickle unless you’re at the tippy-top, with a private jet at your command. Ani is the one character who continually, and loudly, advocates for her own value. “When you give me health insurance, workers’ comp and a 401(k), then you can tell me when I work,” she claps back to her strip-club boss. The tragedy of “Anora” is that even this smart and forceful girl gets crushed by wealth. Only the Russian billionaires end the film without a scratch — or bruise, broken nose or busted SUV.
There were two clues this was going to be “Anora’s” night. One was the way Baker scampered off after his second win with a casual wave, an unconscious signal that it was dawning on him that the evening’s momentum might bring him back up there again. The other came in host Conan O’Brien’s opening-monologue pledge to shine a light on the hardworking craftspeople behind the camera, i.e., the artists who buttress the stars.
The show’s executive producers Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan and director Hamish Hamilton made good on that vow. Last year, the Oscars goosed their A-list glitz by having each acting award presented by five celebrities who expressed their admiration for every nominee. Lupita Nyong’o brought supporting actress winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph to tears even before her name was called. This year, though, that laser beam of glamour instead highlighted two technical categories, with the performers of each nominated film paying rapturous homage to below-the-liners who make them look good. Minor exceptions were Bowen Yang, whose self-mockingly snotty type of comedy doesn’t allow for sincerity (at least his “Wicked” costumer won), and the glaring absence of Angelina Jolie for “Maria’s” cinematography nod (ironically, the show was forced to send out her character’s maid).
O’Brien did fantastic. His Oscars was determined to entertain yet never oblivious to this uneasy moment in time. “Ball’s in your court, Estonia,” O’Brien joked when winners made Oscars history, first when “Flow” director Gints Zilbalodis became the first Latvian to win an Academy Award, and again when “Wicked’s” Paul Tazewell became the first Black man to win for costume design. For those keeping count, O’Brien could have made that joke at least twice more for supporting actress Zoe Saldaña (the first for an American of Dominican origin) and international feature winner “I’m Still Here” (astonishingly, the first-ever Oscar for Brazil). Beginning with “Parasite’s” best picture win in 2020, the international scope of the last several Oscars is starting to feel like a warning: If Hollywood’s increasingly cash-poor artists don’t get more support, there’s enough talent around the globe to leave our town in the dust.
For the last two months and for nearly all of the night, prognosticators felt comfortable predicting that Demi Moore would claim her own much-anticipated statuette for “The Substance.” Moore is fantastic as a once award-winning superstar who gets Stockholm-syndromed by a chauvinistic industry into believing that her only value is a bouncy set of buns. Moore’s campaign was a salute to perseverance, to a body of work made rawly literal when, after she played a sex worker in “Striptease,” people fixated on her thighs and breasts. She’s labored for acknowledgment for decades. Just last week at the Screen Actors Guild awards, she once again won over the room reminding them that she’d gotten her SAG card in 1978 at the age of 15. Holding that seemingly auspicious prize, she choked up trying to find the words she wanted to say to teenage Moore, “that little girl who didn’t believe in herself.”
But Moore lost and the loss hurt, even though there’s no question that “Anora’s” young breakout star was equally good at carrying a movie on her be-thonged back. Part of the pain is that Moore is two-and-a-half times Madison’s age but is only now being offered the kind of roles that prove her worth.
And part of the salve is that Madison is ascending in an era that is (hopefully) writing more female parts worth playing for actors of all demographics. This year, the average age of all five lead actress nominees was a respectable 47. Here’s an idea: Now that both Baker and Moore have everyone’s attention and goodwill, how about they team up for another bold indie that’ll once more bring the dogged, weary, film-loving workers of Hollywood to their feet.
From the Oscars to the Emmys.
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