Overlook ‘Fairly Girl’ — This Oscar Successful Traditional Nailed the Intercourse Employee Cinderella Story 68 Years Earlier than ‘Anora’

Weeks after profitable Greatest Image on the Oscars, with Mikey Madison winning an Oscar for taking part in the title position, Sean Baker‘s Anora is finally streaming on Hulu, which signifies that many extra individuals are going to have the ability to uncover it. Ever for the reason that film debuted on the Cannes Movie Pageant in Might 2025, comparisons have been made to Julia Roberts‘ 1990 romantic comedy, Fairly Girl, by which the earlier Oscar winner performed Vivian, a Hollywood name lady, who finds her “good-looking prince” in Richard Gere‘s Edward, a company exec who begins lavishing items on his favourite escort. Baker’s indie movie most likely owes extra to a fair older movie, Federico Fellini‘s Oscar-winning 1957 movie, Nights of Cabiria, starring his spouse, Giulietta Masina, within the title of a intercourse employee on the lookout for her personal Prince Charming on the streets of Rome. Actually, when L.A.’s American Cinematheque lately held a retrospective of Baker’s work, it included a screening of Fellini’s movie, and that was most likely not a coincidence.

Cabiria’s Journey Follows a Related Path as Anora’s

Giulietta Masina was already receiving accolades for her efficiency as Maria “Cabiria” Ceccarelli when Nights of Cabiria premiered on the Cannes Film Festival mere months after Fellini’s La Strada (additionally starring Masina) gained the Oscar within the overseas language class. Masina’s characterization of an Italian streetwalker dwelling in poverty however nonetheless having a joie de vivre about life delivered an infectious enthusiasm that belied her lifestyle. After we first meet Cabiria, she’s being pushed right into a river by her boyfriend, after he steals her purse stuffed with her hard-earned cash. Although any trauma from Anora’s past is never openly revealed, she clearly is not completely satisfied together with her present life when Mark Eydelshteyn‘s Ivan, the son of a Russian oligarch, exhibits as much as take her away from all of it to affix his carefree way of life.

Cabiria has an identical degree of sass as Madison’s Ani in Baker’s Anora, there even being a second when Cabiria will get right into a bodily altercation with one other sassy streetwalker, mirroring an identical feud Ani has on the strip membership the place she works. Cabiria desperately wants to find true love, and ideally, a rich man who can take her away from her impoverished way of life. That appears potential at first when a well-known Italian actor named Alberto Lazzari exhibits curiosity in Cabiria, however that finally ends up going nowhere. It exhibits why real-life Cinderella tales are so uncommon, as a result of Anora’s fortune in being pulled into this world the place cash isn’t any object is just not one thing as simply discovered inside Cabiria’s world.

‘Fairly Girl’ Is Extra of a Hollywood Take On Intercourse Employees Than ‘Cabiria’

The reality is that Julia Roberts’ Vivian is a really glamorous portrayal of a intercourse employee, since she’s a high-priced name lady, which makes Fairly Girl extra of a Hollywood model of this Cinderella story than both Fellini’s movie or Baker’s. Cabiria ultimately meets a person who appears to like her and desires to marry her, so she sells off her ramshackled home on the outskirts of Rome to maneuver to the town to be with him. At that time, Fellini’s movie certainly seems to be giving its lead character a reason to be hopeful, just like Anora being put ready the place she might put her stripping days behind her.

Like with Anora, Nights of Cabiria finally ends up turning tragic, as if to say there actually will be no completely satisfied endings in that way of life. Though each Anora’s and Cabiria’s lives would possibly find yourself being higher off, each films finish earlier than we will really discover out what occurs subsequent. Fairly Girl‘s completely satisfied ending is much extra the kind of Hollywood ending moviegoers would possibly choose, even when it is extra of a fantasy than actuality. Though the top to Cabiria’s story is as bittersweet as Anora’s, Fellini and Masina nonetheless managed to finish Nights of Cabiria on a happier be aware, as Cabiria’s everlasting optimism left audiences elated moderately than depressed, since she proves that there’s all the time a tomorrow. If you watch the Fellini basic, you’ll be able to see the way it most likely had a a lot larger affect on Baker than something as apparent as Fairly Girl.