By Alex McPherson

An intense, darkly funny, and, ultimately, heartbreaking tribute to those striving to achieve the American Dream, featuring a magnificent performance from Mikey Madison, director Sean Baker’s “Anora” is a film that feels gloriously alive.

The story centers around Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Madison), who works as a dancer and occasional escort in a high-class Manhattan strip club. She’s disarming, fierce, charismatic, and highly skilled in her lines of work. When we first meet Ani, she is gliding near-effortlessly from client to client, flashing her smile, showing off her body, and luring her clientele (often of the rich, older, White man variety) back to the club’s private rooms, for a manufactured fantasy that’s repeated night after night, under her control. 

But no matter how much fun she seems to be having in the moment, it’s just a job for Ani, and a taxing one at that, complete with co-worker rivalries, a demanding boss, and hours that leave her shuffling to a cramped house in Brighton Beach every morning for a few hours of shut-eye before doing it all over again.

Ani has a vulnerable, damaged soul behind her confident persona at work, trapped in an exhausting cycle to make ends meet doing what she knows. Should an “out” arise, she’s willing to seize it. On one fateful night, an opportunity finally presents itself.

Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eidelshtein), the unruly, childish son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, visits Ani’s club one night. He’s allegedly on a trip to America from Russia to “study.” Having some Russian heritage herself and being able to understand the language (if not fluently speak it), Ani is instructed by her boss to treat Vanya with a good time.

Before long, they hit it off, and Ani — drawn to Vanya’s carefree youthfulness and goofy charm — is hired as a private escort in Vanya’s father’s lavish mansion in Brooklyn. As their bond blossoms, Vanya offers Ani $15,000 to be his “super horny girlfriend” for a week, partying and partaking in various shenanigans around New York City, before flying on a private jet for more revelry in Las Vegas. 

Ani is swept off her feet by her Prince Charming, who seemingly presents her with a new life, leaving those “beneath them” to clean up their mess. When Vanya proposes to Ani, she can’t help but say yes, giving herself fully into the fantasy.

The only problem is, well, Vanya, who hopes to get a green card to stay in America. Once his parents in Russia get wind of the marriage, they rush to get it annulled. Vanya’s godfather, Toros (Karren Karagulian), and his unlucky goons Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and the surprisingly sensitive, observant Igor (Yura Borisov) are tasked with apprehending Vanya and Ani to move the annulment process along and bring Vanya back to Russia.

Challenges arise when Vanya runs away, leaving the group on a frantic search through New York City to find him, and sending Ani’s hopes and dreams crashing back to injustice-laden reality.

Like Sean Baker’s previous films, “Anora” is an involving experience that’s wholly empathetic to those living on the margins of society. It’s a fairy tale turned on its head — one where the allure of wealth and the illusion of consequence-free living comes crashing down, where the dehumanizing pull of money is on full display, and where genuine, non-transactional human connection is fleeting. It’s also a cinematic wonder whose highs remain long after the end credits roll.

In a star-making, effervescent turn, Madison delivers one of the year’s finest performances. Her Ani is a complex, feisty, and lovable character with depth and a history that Madison conveys with a tangible sense of lived experience. Without resorting to overacting or blatant exposition, and relying as much on delivery as on Baker’s excellent screenplay, Madison takes us on an emotional roller coaster— displaying the gradual thawing of Ani’s initial skepticism, the whirlwind of young love, the subtle-but-crushing realization of the future she’s envisioned falling apart, and her clinging to the shred of hope that remains (and is worth fighting for) amid the literal and emotional wreckage that ensues. Madison’s performance is made all the more stirring thanks to Baker’s direction, which mirrors Ani’s changing sense of self.

Baker’s characteristic attention-to-detail is in full swing from the film’s opening moments. He throws us into Ani’s world — depicting her work in nonjudgmental, matter-of-fact fashion that doesn’t linger in the male gaze. Drew Daniels’ cinematography and Baker’s editing are busy but precise, reflecting Ani in her element, before becoming free-flowing and loose during Ani and Vanya’s time together, and descending into “Uncut Gems”-level chaos in the back half, both farcical and distressing as everything spirals further and further out of control.

Baker’s screenplay — naturalistic yet wry, poignant, and always in service of developing character — rarely resorts to caricatures. The central characters contain layers beneath their initial impressions, brought to life by a consistently strong ensemble.

Everyone is mostly believable here, from the impulsive, trouble-making Vanya, to the handlers beholden to the demands of his father, to the workers they run into (and disrespect) during their scrounging for the flaky Russian Timothée Chalamet gone rogue. The situations are sometimes over-the-top, but Baker refuses to sand down his characters, never letting us forget what’s at stake.

The film’s tone, veering from darkly comedic to laugh-out-loud funny to serious to somewhere in between, threads the needle between “entertainment” and serious drama, sometimes within the same scene. Baker finds moments of humor and sensitive connection surrounding the (largely inevitable) narrative beats.

He counters moments of levity and occasional warmth with emotional gut-punches that leave a lasting sting. The outstanding, quietly shattering final moments, for example, come as a stylistic rebuke to the chaotic highs and lows that have come before. We’re left with a character that’s re-discovering herself and what matters to her, with the weight of her experiences bubbling to the surface.

Baker recognizes the power of fantasy, but also the perils of it, underlining the societal divide between who gets to indulge in it and who is relegated to being used, as well as highlighting someone persevering and trying to retain her dignity when the world is against her.

“Anora” is unique in how Baker involves us in Ani’s story, where each revelation and realization hits with force despite us knowing where it’s likely headed. Indeed, the craftsmanship makes it easy to become swept up in Ani’s feelings — establishing the kind of bond that makes the most of the film medium.

Baker’s latest is one of the year’s best films, without a shadow of doubt, only growing more powerful with further reflection. And Madison deserves all the awards.

“Anora” is a 2024 drama, comedy, romance written and directed by Sean Baker starring Mikey Madison, Mark Eidelshtein, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, and Yura Borisov. It is rated: R for strong sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, pervasive language, and drug use, and the runtime is 2 hours, 19 minutes. It opened in theatres Nov. 1. Alex’s Grade: A+