What does the New Zealand sex industry think of Oscar-winning Anora?

Mark Eydelshteyn (left), Mikey Madison (middle) and Anton Bitter (right) in a scene from Anora, which won five Oscars - including Best Picture. Photo / Universal Pictures

By Serena Solomon of RNZ

Anora, a dark romantic comedy-drama with a stripper as the lead character, cleaned up at the Oscars, winning five awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress.

The independent film, which had a budget of $10 million, follows a New York City stripper, Ani, whose young wealthy Russian client, Vanya, hires her to spend the week with him. They fall in love and spontaneously get married. Vanya’s family is not pleased.

After the film’s big win at the Oscars, New Zealand cinemas have brought the film back with multiple screenings each day, according to Richard Dalton from Lido Cinema in Auckland.

(Warning: there are some spoilers in here)

Anora has a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes meaning it gained almost universal acclaim from film critics.

But, what do strippers and those in the sex industry think of its depiction of their lives and workplaces? The reviews have been mixed with some loving the depiction of the sex work and adult entertainment industries and others not. Many pointed to the true and false depiction of their industries in the film.

Mikey Madison plays Ani in Anora. Photo / Universal Pictures

Cherida Fraser, 48, is a former New Zealand sex worker and community liaison from the Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers Collective. (Strippers come under the banner of sex workers, but may or may not offer sex as part of their work. It depends on the individual stripper).

Fraser has worked as an escort and at “a busy walk-in brothel” throughout her eight-year career in sex work. She saw the movie at a screening in New Zealand that included a Q&A with the film’s director Sean Baker, who has tackled the peripheral lives of sex workers in earlier films.

“No one really wants to watch things about sex work when they’re a sex worker. We’re scared that it is going to be annoying and not true,” said Fraser, of when a friend first recommended she see the film after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last May.

Sex workers don’t want to see another Pretty Woman, according to Fraser. In the 1990 comedy romance an escort (Julia Roberts) is plucked out of the industry when a wealthy client (Richard Gere) falls in love with her and she falls in love with him.

“[Vanya] wasn’t trying to save [Ani] her. He was just a party boy who liked hanging out with her and she liked hanging out with him.”

Overall, she liked the film, but there were elements she didn’t enjoy. There were small details that signalled to Fraser that sex workers had been consulted during the production process (Baker hired numerous sex workers as consultants on the film).

“... There were things I really related to, in particular eating out of a tupperware container in the back room [of the strip club], the kinda mundane aspects of working in the club, the behind the scenes.”

Often, media can portray sex work and stripping as glamorous or the opposite, according to Fraser, so it was refreshing for her to see a balanced view.

Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn in a scene from Anora. Photo / Universal Pictures

“Just in the backroom [at the club] where she is eating her leftovers out of a Tupperware container - we are like normal people who have to take their lunch to work.”

As for the premise of the show - being hired out for a long-term assignment - it does happen, even in New Zealand where client budgets are typically tighter.

Fraser said that she has worked in Wellington, Auckland and overseas, including taking multi-week trips with clients, including exclusive locations (that was named off the record).

The film briefly touches on what Fraser described as “client ownership” that can happen in the industry when a regular goes everywhere for service. She said it doesn’t happen every day, but it can spark jealousy between workers similar to if you went to another hairdresser in the salon after frequenting someone for many years.

“... When someone has a regular client they have feelings when that regular client spends their money seeing someone else.”

One moment of disappointment for Fraser had to do with contract negotiations. Fraser felt like Ani could have held out for a higher amount when she agreed to the annulment of her marriage with Vanya. Ani got $15,000 in US dollars to be his girlfriend for the week but only $10,000 for the annulment, but Vanya’s family were violent and threatening toward her.

“$10,000 - it wasn’t enough. She should have pushed it. They had plenty of money and they wanted an annulment.”

A stripper reviewed the film for the website Buzzfeed and she said it was more miss than hit. While the stripper, called Emma, found the opening scenes “true to life,” the rest of the film made her angry. The elated approval from Ani’s co-workers of the engagement wasn’t realistic, she said, pointing out that sex workers are often protective of their financial independence. A similar situation would have faced scepticism from other strippers.

Anora won five awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress, at the 2025 Oscars. Photo / Getty Images

Sex workers really do see themselves as professionals, the stripper noted, and the idea of becoming emotionally attached to a client like Ani did with Vanya was unprofessional.

Lily Burana, a former exotic dancer, reviewed the film for Rolling Stone. She pointed to the everyday details that Fraser mentioned and “wholly gave over my respect” to the film when Ani’s legs bore the marks of her work. The bruises are known as pole hickeys and come from the physical demands of pole dancing.

As Fraser also pointed out, much of the film is not necessarily about the adult entertainment industry, Burana wrote. That becomes peripheral information as the film progresses.

“I like that the sex work was kinda secondary to the story,” said Fraser. “It was really an action film.”