Director Sean Baker has always had a fondness for anthropological cinema. His films are mostly studies of people on the fringes, or disenfranchised people in the United States. Between films like Starlet, Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket, he is well regarded in indie circles and has been recognized by a lot of critic groups when it comes to award season voting, however his films have yet to really hit with Academy voters. I feel like that’s all about to change with his latest film, winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Anora. 

Anora ‘Ani’ Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) is an erotic dancer/occasional sex worker in her early 20s living in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. One night, she is paired up with customer Ivan ‘Vanya’ Zakahrov (Mark Eydelshteyn), a young Russian man with lots of money. After some interactions where Ani herself seems to be having a good time, Vanya hires her for the week, Pretty Woman style. And during that week, they run off to Vegas and get married on a whim, so Vanya can get a green card and not have to go back to Russia to work for his father’s business.

And for awhile, they’re in the throes of drug and alcohol-fueled, money-is-no-object romantic bliss, the kind you can only have when you’re too young to know any better, the kind that can’t possibly last. And then Vanya’s parents in Russia catch wind of what’s going on, and they are not pleased. They send henchmen to find Vanya and Ani, hoping to get this marriage annulled. Vanya runs away, forcing Ani and the henchmen on an all-night journey to find where he’s gone. Chaos ensues.

After having just seen Emilia Perez, a similarly buzzy awards title, and thinking it was a big mess that had no idea how to juggle all the different tones it was aiming for, it becomes all the more clear what a masterclass in tone writer/director Sean Baker has achieved with Anora. The film is at points, hilarious, heartbreaking, devastatingly romantic, but then turns into an action movie, and then a farce, and an Uncut Gems-level anxiety attack, and ends with one of the biggest emotional gut-punches I’ve seen all year. And every single bit of it works. Maybe it’s just the week I’ve been having, or maybe the film really earned it – I’m not quite sure, and I’ll decide when I see the film a second time, but the final few minutes of Anora is comprised of a single take where all the emotion of this story finally hits you at once, and I started bawling my eyes out. It felt very inconsiderate of my movie theater to turn on the house lights as quickly as it did. 

Much has been written about Mikey Madison’s breakout performance here, and there’s very little I can say that has not already been said, but this is nothing short of a star-making performance. The emotional depths Madison has to play here, combined with the physicality and brassiness of this character, make her a fully realized person with agency over what her story becomes. Anora is every bit as much a character study as anything else, and the internal life of this character is every bit as fascinating as anything else going on here. And Madison is so good, you forget you’re watching an actor who has put every bit of herself into this performance. Ani just feels like a real person. She’s not always sympathetic, she’s kind of an asshole to her loved ones, but there’s a genuine nature to her that makes her always feel like a fully realized human being. 

My immediate thought when I started watching Mark Eydelshteyn was, this kid is giving Russian Timothée Chalamet. And while I don’t think that’s not true, Eydelshteyn is very good at playing the complexities of his character as well. He’s a spoiled rich kid who makes an impulsive decision and has trouble following through on the promises he’s made. And his performance is gently heartbreaking throughout. Also impressive is Yura Borisov, as Igor, one of the men working for Vanya’s family, who’s the only person who looks at Ani like she’s a human being, and not an obstacle. Their relationship evolves in an interesting way over the course of the story. 

Sean Baker has had a stellar career, and he’s still pretty young, and will still, presumably, do this kind of thing for years to come. This isn’t even his best film, but it’s also one of the best films I’ve seen this year, without question. The way this filmmaker taps into these communities and groups of people that are struggling or on the fringes, communities he is not a part of, but does not feel leery or judgmental of them, needs to be studied. There is such empathy and such heart to pretty much everything Sean Baker has made, and there are many lessons lesser filmmakers could learn from what he’s able to accomplish, every single time.

Anora walks a tightrope of being some of the most fun you’ll have at the movies all year, and being a movie that will leave you feeling like you’ve had a full-on existential crisis. It’s exciting but it’s a downer. There’s a lot to enjoy here but it’ll break you. If that feels like too much for right now, I would wait a bit because I feel like there is a strong chance this will play in theaters, to some extent, leading up to Oscar night. There is so much here that Oscar voters won’t be able to ignore. But this is absolutely a film you should see at some point before then. It loses a point or two because it’s a bit too long, and maybe a little repetitive in the middle, but Anora is absolutely one of the best cinema experiences I’ve had all year, and it’s pretty close to essential viewing.