Just saw Anora and got so obsessed w Igor its not funny i need to see more posts about him 😭😭😭😭
Igor’s on such a journey and I love it.
Can you imagine: it’s your birthday and you get a call from the Armenian guy you work for to pick him up at a baptism so you both can check on his boss’s boss’s rich-ass useless son and see if he has or has not married a prostitute. You understand the job — look tough, provide a little muscle if the situation calls for it — and once it’s done you can go return your grandmother’s car from where you borrowed it and visit with her for an hour or so before maybe heading out for a lowkey night to celebrate.
Instead, the rich-ass useless son runs away and you end up having to make sure the girl he married — who takes great offense to being called a prostitute, by the way — doesn’t take off too, and because she won’t stop throwing things and hitting you in the face and screaming you don’t know what else to do except restrain her with a phone cord.
And then she bites you and breaks the Armenian’s nose even as you’ve got her in a hold on top of you.
It’s not exactly what Igor had in mind for the day, is all I’m saying.
As an audience, we also get our expectations turned on their head: Igor, who at first just seems like your standard Slavic hired goon, turns out to have a heart of gold, or at least a soft spot just big enough for a beautiful, foul-mouthed erotic dancer with an impressive left hook. (Although he’s no slouch either, considering how he wields that aluminum bat.) There’s something about her that he really likes, even from the beginning, and you can see him looking out for her and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to make up for what he did to her back at the house.
I think he admires her brashness, and the way she’s determined to fight for the Cinderella dream that a life with Ivan promised her. In both the courtroom scene and on the tarmac with Ivan’s mother he secretly smiles as he listens to her argue and threaten, even against people far wealthier and more powerful.
(There also seems to be a class element, at least where her conflict with the Zakharovs are concerned. Igor probably doesn’t love the fact that he’s employed by these rich assholes and Ani saying that she’s going to take half their money has him silently cheering her on, because, yeah, fuck them. And when Galina Zakharov winks at him after threatening Ani’s whole existence, he has to look away in shame, because he still works for them, and they think that means they own him.)
I’d love to know when he decides to steal the ring from Toros. Maybe at some point on the plane, after he can see that part of her has given up. It’s a brilliant display of rebellion, made even better by the fact that he waits until the very last minute to give it to her. (Would we have heard all that shit about “hunchback weirdos” and “rape eyes” if he had surprised her with it the first moment they were alone? But Igor is secure enough to take all her insults, and probably likes the fact that she feels safe enough to keep roasting him again and again. “Touché, motherfucker?” she says, and all he can do is giggle.)
Which brings us to the car scene.
The ring is an act of atonement, something to make up for what she’s been through over the past two days — some of which he knows he’s responsible for — and one last fuck you to the family that humiliated her. Igor thinks he’s evening the score before he says goodbye, not realizing that Ani sees it as a gesture she needs to pay back to keep feeling like she’s in control. So she gives him what she thinks he wants — what all men want from her.
Igor’s an adaptive, street-smart guy, but he wasn’t prepared for what she ends up doing. He doesn’t resist, though, taking initiative only once she’s fully on top of him and then just to take her face in his hands. Does some part of him know this is transactional? Does some part of him want it to be real the way Ani wanted Ivan to be real? He wants to pretend at least, and tries to kiss her, only for Ani it’s too real, too much, and she’ll fight to make it stop, like she fights for so many things in her life. But the emotions bubble up anyway, and even through the haze of sex Igor can see she’s in pain, so he pulls her in close and lets her cry, steady and silent as the sobs wrack her body like waves.
It’s a scene that neatly mirrors the one from the living room — him holding her as she’s on top of him — now cast as an expression of vulnerability and care rather than fear and aggression. He’s always been strong enough to hold her, but it’s only at the very end that Ani is willing to be held.
