(Editor’s note: The following story contains major spoilers for “Anora.”)

‘Anora’ ends with a grand gesture and a moment of gratitude that turns into despair and possibly hope. And Sean Baker is here to share how it was done.

The writer/director’s finale, set in a car as snow falls outside on Brighton Beach and the windshield wipers send the audience into a sort of trance until Baker and his team drop the hammer, is one of the best movie endings of all time . It’s the kind of shattering cut-to-black that keeps you glued to your seat, an emotional farewell to what has thus far been a deceptively goofy comedy about a sex worker and exotic dancer, Ani (Mikey Madison), whose “best day” ‘ leads to a rock-bottom revelation.

Deployed Russian henchman Igor (Yura Borisov, the picture’s breakout character) has brought Ani back to New York from Vegas, where she had a whirlwind contract marriage to a party-hopping childish flute of an oligarch’s son (Mark Eydelshteyn). Marriage (“a fraud marriage?” she rasps at one point) is over, and Ani is left with nothing after being stripped of her marriage by Vanya’s (Eydelshteyn) parents and severely threatened if she tries to make any noise about it. But Igor, who we hanging in the wings of the film and slowly falling in love with Ani as he tried to capture her but ultimately protect her, has saved for Ani the greatest gift: her wedding ring as an emblem of good will And of course is the only one way for Ani to thank him for a sexual favor. Then he tries to kiss her, breaking her barriers to intimacy. She stops, pulls away and then falls into his arms, sobbing as he holds her. And scene.

The inspiration for the ending came from “Anora’s” main influence, Federico Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria,” in which prostitute Cabiria (Giulietta Masina, Fellini’s own wife) sheds a mascara-stained tear at the end of the film after being re-absorbed exploited by a power-hungry man. -be a lover. Cabiria looks into the camera, nodding, as if to say, “It’s okay, keep smiling, it’ll be okay, I’ll keep going.” In Baker’s film, we don’t see Ani’s face in the final shot, making her future more ambiguous and potentially leaving audiences hoping for a romance between Ani and Igor long after the credits roll. Maybe, but Baker sees it differently. We know that Ani is doing well in any case.

“I always have the beginning, middle and end worked out before I start writing. That was a sequence that we kind of made up in our heads,” Baker said in an interview with IndieWire with his producers Samantha Quan (also his wife) and Alex Coco.

“I went back and reread the Google Doc that we were working on before you went into the Final Draft for the script, and it’s exactly the same from the beginning,” Coco said.

“We knew the snow would slowly build up and literally trap them inside like a snowy cave by the end of the scene,” Baker said. Separately, he told IndieWire: “For me, the endings have to pack an emotional punch. My favorite films have endings that are the most memorable part of those films… after this long journey, we had to deliver on that goal.”

“What we didn’t know is that the filming would last three days,” Coco said, with Quan adding that they shot in two locations in Brighton Beach (where the cast and crew lived before and during production). Coco continued: “The choreography around that scene wasn’t just the performances. It was also the whole crew around the car trying to maintain this intimate space in the car where they were just alone. We had two camera moves. We had our production designer (Stephen Phelps) sit on the hood of the car with a box full of fake snow, which he dumped near the window in an attempt to collect it. I’m trying to deal with the police because we’re going too far, not to throw us out… Everyone held their breath and prayed for five minutes, like please, everything is on the same page.”

Baker sat in the backseat of the car with Borisov and Madison and said, “This magical moment happened. I don’t know if you remember ‘Nights of Cabiria’, but in the last shot she has a single tear. I remember sitting in the back seat and leaning over to see if the tears came, and (Mikey Madison) shed this one tear, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe we’re doing this . unintentional nod to the film that actually inspired it. ”

I see the last scene of “Anora” as an existential breakdown where the only way Ani can show gratitude in this way is with her body. But the emotional and psychological arc of her journey with Vanya leaves her at an impasse and wanting to continue in her usual mode as a sex worker—one whose job requires her to avoid any substantive human connection such as the one Igor may be trying to form.

“That’s one way to look at it. I certainly have a different interpretation. It is designed to allow for different interpretations,” Baker said. “I see it being more about her and not really something that she gives to him, but something where she is now regaining the strength that she completely lost during this journey. We’re playing with different themes, and one of them is consent, and if he tries to kiss her at that moment, it crosses a line for her. It’s like, ‘No, I’m in control of this moment.'”

Baker said: “Mikey and I talked a lot about the motivation and intention for that scene, and the meaning, and we came up with something on our own. But we also said in those conversations: ‘I don’t think we will ever say what we feel ourselves.’

“Everyone seems to have a strong reaction to it, regardless of what they think is happening,” Quan said.

Baker is accustomed to divisiveness in general toward his films — which are almost always driven by an empathetic portrait of sex work, including his iPhone shot, LA-set “Tangerine” or the street hustles of his third feature, “Prince of Broadway . ” With his previous film, the toxic character study “Red Rocket,” he worried about possible audience reactions to the age difference between the penniless ex-porn star brashly played by Simon Rex and the Lolita-esque teenage counter worker he manipulatively woos , plays. by Suzanna Zoon.

“We actually thought (‘Anora’) would be more divisive – so far it hasn’t been as divisive as we thought. It was special to see such an acceptance of it,” Baker said. “I even have some haters on Twitter saying, ‘We still hate Sean, but we like this movie.’ They don’t give me any rest. They still hate me!”

Chris O’Falt contributed reporting.

“Anora” is now playing everywhere from Neon.