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Why Did Sean Baker Avoid Politics in His Films Until Anora?
If his previous work implies a stacked deck, it stays vague about who stacked it. Anora just tells us: It was the ultrarich.
In Take Out, a vérité-inspired slog that stretches over one long New York day, an undocumented Chinese restaurant delivery guy named Ming Ding struggles to make enough tips to get a loan shark off his back. Other Baker films get into the marriages of convenience that happen in the legal gray zone — like the partnership, in 2008’s Prince of Broadway, between West African men who hustle counterfeit bags and the Lebanese guy whose midtown storefront he offers them as a showroom and stash spot in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. As with all of Baker’s characters, the shape of Anora ’s oligarchs brushes with reality; the exteriors of Ivan’s house were shot at a compound in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, which previously belonged to the ex-wife of a Russian billionaire.
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