Anora: Movie Review

Cast: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Yura Borisov, Vache Tovmasyan
Director: Sean Baker

Sean Baker continues his predilection for characters in industries or lifestyles usually vilified by outsiders in this entertaining, if occasionally unwieldly, film about a Cinderella tale.

Russian-American exotic dancer Anora (Madison, a breakout performance), who prefers to be known as Ani, is working in a local club in New York, when she's asked to "look after" the young Vanya (Eydelshteyn) for the night.

Seemingly drowning in cash, Vanya asks Ani to be exclusive to him for a week during New Year's and whisks her away to a luxurious mansion, endless drinks and continual parties. One thing leads to another, and the pair end up in a whirlwind marriage in Vegas. But when Vanya's absentee Russian parents find out, they send a group to ensure the nuptials are annulled.

Elements of Keystone Cops and general broad stereotyped comedy follow in Anora, and while it's perhaps here the movie begins to feel some of its bloat and sag as the belittled Ani and her "captors" traipse round Brooklyn at night looking for the errant Vanya, it never settles for anything less from its protagonist.

Madison delivers the kind of performance that you can't look away from here. Equal parts spiky, vitriolic, angry and vulnerable as the girl whose dream is slipping away from her, she could easily have made the role the kind of cliche one would expect from a sex worker. But crafting the role with Baker's eye for humanism in such circumstances and also giving plenty of heart and humanity to her plight, Madison's anything but a wide-eyed naif as she tackles everything that's thrown in her way. 

And while some of the comedy of the goons trying to find their lost charge grates occasionally, Baker manages to keep things on the right side of unexpectedly funny as he winds his way through some gorgeously shot nighttime vistas.

There's heartbreak and hope in equal measure through this, much like many of Baker's other films such as The Florida Project and Red Rocket. But what's most prominent about Anora is its lead actress. Make no mistake, Madison's destined for greater things.