'Anora' Ending Explained: Ani's True Love

Fresh off its multiple Oscar wins, it feels like Anora is doing gangbusters in a theatrical rerelease and VOD debut. It's become a movie everyone is watching and talking about.

Of course, that means everyone is discussing that ending and the emotional journey of the characters.

Today, I want to spend some time going over the plot of Anora, its ending, and explaining the themes we saw on screen.

Let's dive in.

Who's In Anora? 

The movie, Anora, was directed, written, and edited by Sean Baker. It stars Mikey Madison as our titular stripper named Anora Mikheeva (she prefers Ani), who enters a tumultuous marriage with the oligarch's son, portrayed by Mark Eydelshteyn. Also in the cast are Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Darya Ekamasova, and Aleksei Serebryakov.

Anora's Plot

Ani is a stripper who works in Brooklyn and lives in Brighton Beach. While on a shift, her boss sends her out to meet Vanya, a young rich Russian who is in America to study but spends most of his time partying.

Vanya speaks to Ani because she can understand Russian. Her grandmother spoke it to her, and while she can only really curse in it, she can understand most of what he says.

After a few strip club visits, Vanya begins to pay Ani for sex. Then he pays her to be his girlfriend. As this escalates, he takes her to Vegas with his friends, where he decides to marry her.

She feels like she's been catapulted into a fairytale, and she's Cinderella. Ani quits the strip club, moves into Vanya's mansion, and expects to live happily ever after.

But all good things come to an end when Vanya's oligarch parents discover the marriage, Galina, Vanya's mother, orders his godfather, Toros, to get them an annulment, while she and her husband fly to the U.S. to confront their son.

Toros sends his henchmen, Garnik and Igor, to tell Vanya he has to go back to Russia and leave this life behind.

Vanya, seeing all this trouble, escapes from the house, leaving Ani behind, and disappears into New York.

Toros is beside himself. He labels Ani a prostitute and says Vanya only married her for a green card. He takes Ani's wedding ring, gags her, and offers her money to agree to the annulment.

Ani refuses, but the henchmen tie her up, and Ani is then forced to go with all of them to help them find Vanya before his parents arrive.

From here, we follow Ani as she actually grows on the henchmen, especially Igor, who is truly sorry for this situation. The deeper they get into looking for Vanya, the more Ani begins to realize their love wasn't real, and her dream of leaving Brighton Beach and stripping behind is not a reality.

Eventually, they find Vanya back at Ani's strip club. When they bring him to meet his parents, Ani begs him to stay with her and stand up to them. But Vanya is weak and offers Ani nothing.

They all board a private plane and fly to Vegas for the annulment. On the plane and in the office, Vanya's mother berates Ani. She tells Ani no matter what she's still lower class, and would never be able to fit in or get higher in life. She just has to deal with that.

These words are so harsh that even Toros feels sorry for Ani. He thinks Vanya should apologize to her, but Galina refuses. the family heads back to Russia, leaving Ani and the henchmen back in New York.

They take Ani back to the mansion, where she's left with Igor, and has the night to collect all her belongings. The two of them flirt and we sense some romance possibly bubbling between them.

As Anora ends, Igor drives Ani back to her home. There, he gives her the money she was owed and helps her take out her suitcases. But before she exits the car for good, he gives her back the wedding ring Vanya bought her which is undoubtedly worth a lot more money. It's also a gesture of Igor saying he knows she was wronged.

At that moment, Ani gets on top of Igor, while in the car, and they begin to have sex. But the sex ends when Igor, who clearly likes her a lot, tries to kiss her. That turns into her sobbing in his arms, and he holds her as she continues to cry.

The Anora Ending Explained

Now, that's a pretty bleak ending, but what does it all mean?

Ani is a sex worker who is so used to the world only valuing her sexuality, that when someone like Igor genuinely does something nice for her, she has no idea how to reciprocate. And when he wants to kiss her, she realizes she's so hurt she's not sure how to have an emotional connection.

In that moment at the end, Ani finally comes to terms with the true cost of the whole ordeal. And it causes her to weep. She's just gone through an immense trauma. She was living out a dream that became a nightmare.

The movie ends on an ambiguous note, leaving the audience to come up with their own thoughts on the lasting impact of these events on Anora's life.

We're also forced to deal with the broader themes of class and power when it comes to the haves and have-nots of this world.

Anora was used as a pawn in Vanya's world, and he never stopped to think about how that would affect her. And she bought into the whole scenario because her life was so bad, she had no choice but to hope for the best.

This power imbalance is underscored by how the oligarch treats her and how they treat their employees as well. Nothing matters to them.

At the end of the movie, we hope Ani sees her worth, but we're also fearful and accepting that she will inevitably return to the life before.

Summing Up the Anora Ending 

Anora was a powerful movie, and Mikey Madison's portrayal of the character is one I will not soon forget.

While the ending may be bleak in some people's eyes, I maintain that Ani is a woman driven to shut people up, and possibly she will spend the next part of her life exceeding whatever those Oligarch's expectations of her might be.

I'd love to hear your interpretations of the story and the ending of the movie.

Let me know what you think in the comments.