James Berardinelli review - ***1/2 out of ****

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Going into Anora, I wasn’t sure what to expect but it certainly wasn’t a screwball comedy. Yet, following an explosively erotic, wild twist on the Pretty Woman cliché, writer/director Sean Baker guides his movie into an extended period of warped comedy. By the third act, he returns to a drama-based foundation, focusing on concluding with a modicum of closure but Anora stands out as an airy experience full of surprises (big and small), all anchored by Mikey Madison’s tremendous performance.

Madison is a revelation as the title character, stripper Anora “Ani” Mikheeva, who lives in Brooklyn and works in an upscale club in Manhattan. Madison has mastered the accent and attitude of someone eking out an existence in Ani’s circumstances. The character is bold and brassy, taking shit from no one (including her fellow dancers) and seizing any opportunity that comes her way. Madison is fearless, seemingly comfortable with the nudity required for (numerous) scenes in the film’s first 45 minutes (she reportedly felt so at ease with Baker and her co-star, Mark Eydelshteyn, that she turned down the offer of an intimacy coordinator) and showing an admirable capacity for physical comedy during the film’s midsection. But her most remarkable moment comes during the final scene.

Early in Anora, Baker, who has a gift for a you-are-there filmmaking, takes the viewer behind-the-scenes at the strip club where Anora works, providing glimpses of how the dancers view their work. The conversations aren’t fundamentally different from what one might hear from servers in restaurants or performers in a stage show. This is a job. They know how to do it and how to skirt the rules to get the best tips. Anora is willing to do a little extra on the side (off club grounds) to make some additional cash but she’s not cheap and doesn’t perceive herself as a prostitute. In fact, she bristles at being called a “whore” or “hooker,” evidence to the contrary.

Her fortunes, which are illustrated briefly with a shot of her flat, take a turn for the better when the club owner introduces her to Vanya (Eydelshteyn), the spoiled scion of a Russian oligarch who’s looking for a good time with a woman who can speak Russian (one of Anora’s talents). Smitten and unsatisfied with what she offers in a VIP room, Vanya asks for a meeting at his mansion and the two are soon negotiating a deal where she will be his exclusive, live-in “girlfriend” for a week (she gets $15K for the job). While on a trip to Vegas, Vanya impulsively proposes and the two return to New York as a wedded couple. This news alarms Vanya’s Armenian handler, Toros (Karren Karagulian), who is ordered by Vanya’s irate parents to “take care of” the situation. When his bumbling henchmen, Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov), arrive at the mansion, Vanya is initially stubborn and belligerent but then runs away, leaving Anora to deal with the Three Stooges.

Vanya’s flight signals a shift in tone from the playful romantic interaction between the newlywed couple to the comedic interactions between Anora and her three captors. It’s a twist on O. Henry’s “Ransom of Red Chief,” where the victim is more than the kidnappers can handle. Although this segment probably goes on a little too long (the movie as a whole feels like it could benefit from some trimming, mostly during the third act), it vacillates between darkly amusing and laugh-out-loud funny. The thugs aren’t particularly menacing and Anora never seems to be in danger. By the time Anora reaches its final 40 minutes, the Baker shifts into a more grounded exploration of the emotional toll of the experience on Ani.

In 2017, when Baker had his international breakthrough with The Florida Project, I remember being surprised at how engaging such a small, seemingly simple production could be. I wrote the following: “The Florida Project feels genuine from start to finish and Baker doesn’t wander onto a Hollywood-inspired detour despite many opportunities.” Some of those same qualities are evident in Anora. By using handheld cameras (but not in a way that threaten to bring on nausea) and favoring longer takes, Baker opts for a gritty, intimate perspective to present a narrative that could best be described as a twisted fairy tale. He navigates tonal switches and story beats that could doom another production but which end up elevating this one.