Ani, are you okay? (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karaguilan, Vache Tovmasyan, Aleksei Serebryakov, Darya Ekamasova

Director: Sean Baker

Running Time: 139 Minutes

Rating: R for Stripping, Partying, Shtupping, and Maybe a Concussion or Two

Release Date: October 18, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Multilingualism is a skill that can help you get ahead in the workplace, but can also be taken advantage of for somewhat questionable purposes. Mikey Madison learns that the hard way as the title character of Anora, a loopy and tragic farce about a not-exactly-promising romance. Ani is a Brooklyn-born stripper who can speak Russian and does some high-end escorting on the side, which is how she hooks up with Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), a bratty Russian heir who’s looking to have some fun with a nice lady in between all the video games he plays at his mansion. Their dalliance leads to an impromptu wedding in Vegas, and just as it looks like Ani and Vanya can beat the odds, word gets back to his parents, who don’t exactly approve of what their boy has been up to. So then a group of handlers suddenly show up to rectify the situation, leading to an all-night odyssey through seemingly every Russian-speaking corner of the borough to settle this matter once and for all.

What Made an Impression?: Always an Adventure!: Perhaps you’ve heard the slogan “sex work is work,” which is generally meant to restore humanity and remove the stigma from a group of people who are often shamed and ostracized. The idea is to emphasize that everyone, no matter what they do for money, is just trying to get by like everyone else. But in the films of Sean Baker, the emphasis is more about how a sex worker’s life can be just as ridiculous as anybody else’s. Anora slots right into his typical m.o. with what is essentially Pretty Woman by way of the Coen brothers. It’s basically an increasingly absurd comedy of errors in which nobody really has any idea what they’re doing. At times, the chaos threatens to become so over-the-top that you might start to wonder if the Russian goons will have to fight Ron Burgundy and the rest of the Channel 4 News Team with fire and pitchforks.
The Promise of the Real: But as loopy as Anora is, it remains fastened to the rails of realism thanks to a series of performances that give off vibes like “Won’t you just let me do my job?” or “Can’t you just let me love who I love?” or “Won’t you just let me be me?” Madison anchors it all in what the entire world simply must accept is a star-making turn. If you’ve been anxiously awaiting for something like this after seeing her shine for five seasons as the oldest daughter on the FX sitcom Better Things, then your prayers have been answered. All of the supporting performers around her slot in with the appropriate amounts of cuckoo, unhinged, and/or harried. And WATCH OUT when Aleksei Serebryakov and Darya Ekamasova show up as Vanya’s mom and dad; if you only encounter one cinematic pair of disapproving Russian parents this year, you could do much worse than Nikolai and Galina. And keep a close eye on Yura Borisov, whose henchman character will keep you guessing. That brings me to another classic mark of a Sean Baker movie: it features plenty of interesting people.

Anora is Recommended If You Like: The vicarious thrill of watching other people getting up to misadventures while staying up all night

Grade: 4 out of 5 Annulments