Sean Baker’s Anora stars Mikey Madison as a remarkably agile lap dancer who marries the spoilt son of a Russian oligarch.
Not surprisingly, his parents are shocked when they hear about the wedding. They dispatch a minder and a couple of toughs to make sure the wedding is annulled.
They had sent their son Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) to America to study.
Instead he is leading a decadent life of drinking, partying, sex, clubbing and playing video games.
Anora, known as Ani, lives in working class Brooklyn and works at a Manhattan strip club, where Vanya turns up looking for a girl who speaks Russian.
The two hit it off immediately. She goes to his house, which turns out to be an impressive mansion.
He invites her to his New Year’s Eve party, offers her $15,000 to be his girlfriend and bombards her with gifts.
He is 21, impulsive, thoughtless. He asks her to marry him. Carried away by the moment, but not forgetting to be practical, she points to her ring finger and says, “Three carats.”
“Four,” he responds.
They fly to Las Vegas in a private jet and are quickly married. The honeymoon lasts a couple of days before it is interrupted by Toros (Karren Karagulian) and a pair of heavies, Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov).
Ani, ready to fight for her love, screams abuse and kicks and bites as they try to hold her down.
Vanya is no support. He runs away.
The film develops into a slapstick comedy of destruction and chaos as Toros and his mates trawl through Vanya’s usual hangouts as they try to track him down.
Ani quickly realises that her hopes of true love were an illusion – no match for the Russians’ wealth and power.
The film is sexy, funny, moving and thoroughly entertaining, mainly due to the terrific performance by Madison.
This is by far the most successful of Baker’s films, which are typically about marginalised people such as immigrants and sex workers. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Baker, the director, scriptwriter and editor.
*Anora opens on Thursday, December 26, at Luna Leederville, Luna On SX and Luna Outdoor.
Watch the trailer…
