'Anora' shows sex workers in a different light. That's the whole point.

Anora is not trying to be Pretty Woman, though Sean Baker is flattered by the comparisons. The writer-director didn’t think about how his film might be considered a grittier take on the romantic comedy until someone pointed it out to him in the first week of production.

“To me, that feels like we just need more representations of sex work,” he told Yahoo Entertainment.

Baker said the film, which is now in theaters after winning the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, is also an upbeat tale about a sex worker falling for a wealthy man — but only at first. Much of Anora’s runtime is spent trying to figure out whether the hasty marriage between the title character and the son of a Russian billionaire is meant to last.

“I’m essentially giving the audience a classic romantic comedy about sex work for [roughly] an hour of the film, then letting the audience sit in the sobering reality of it for the next 90 minutes,” he said.

Sex work has been a part of five of Baker’s eight films. During his research process, he met sex workers who became his consultants as well as his friends. They aren’t nearly as “one-dimensional” as pop culture portrays them.

“I realized there are a million stories to be told in that world … and I never wanted just one of my films to represent all of sex work,” Baker said. “I certainly don’t want it to be seen as a schtick of mine either, but I feel like these stories are important [because] the stigma that’s applied to sex work is still out there.”

To ensure that her character, Anora, felt like a “seasoned dancer” and a complete human being, Mikey Madison spent months training with Los Angeles-based dancer Kennady Schneider, the film’s movement consultant, who taught her how to do pole tricks, twerk and give lap dances. Madison read memoirs, watched documentaries, spent time at clubs and even learned Russian to master her character’s backstory.

“I asked myself maybe 200 questions about her life … so that I was completely clear on who I was playing,” Madison told Yahoo Entertainment. “I hold such respect for sex workers and what they do. … I wanted to do my due diligence and research and study so I could play [Anora] in an honest way.”

She and Baker both said they didn’t want to try to portray “the universal sex worker experience” because Anora is just a small glimpse into one woman’s life. Madison wanted to talk to as many people as possible, though, so she could pull the things that made sense for Anora into her story.

“Sean and I talked at length about that … we didn’t want the character to be sensationalized or dramatized in a negative way,” Madison said. “We wanted it to be very honest and real.”

The community’s response to Madison’s hard work was on display at a special screening for dancers and sex workers in September. She co-hosted the event with Lindsey Normington, a sex worker who plays Anora’s rival, Diamond, in the film.

“To walk into a room and have a bunch of beautiful dancers applaud by clacking their Pleasers [high heels] together in the air was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will never forget,” Madison said. “No applause will ever live up to that.”

Renee Olstead wrote in Penthouse about her perspective on Anora as a sex worker, saying Baker took the necessary steps to portray “sex workers as human instead of sterile avatars of vice and virtue.”

She told Yahoo Entertainment that the film stands out in a field of “flattened depictions of sex workers.”

“We’re either the villain or somebody who’s too far gone to be saved, or it’s something like Pretty Woman, which feels benevolent but very convenient,” Olstead said. “I think that showing Anora as a real person who makes mistakes … is really important when we’re talking about more nuanced depictions of sex workers.”

Olstead said what makes Anora special is the number of sex workers who appear in the film, though they aren’t experienced actors, like Sophia Carnabuci and Luna Sofía Miranda, They get to tell stories about their own community while having those stories elevated by an award-winning filmmaker.

“I think there's something really special there too, in seeing sex workers being eager to share the space,” Olstead said. “And I think that's kind of the hallmark of mutual aid … when people have an opportunity or have resources, sharing that with others and kind of lifting the community up.”

She explained that the entertainment industry often struggles to find “the balance between intrigue and stigma,” but centering on real sex workers is a great way to give the wider population a better understanding of what they do.

“Sometimes we're just the metaphor for exploitation,” Olstead said. “But I think that being seen as human and recognized for our strengths as a community … will further push sex workers to the front when it comes to having conversations about themselves.”