When you spend your nights turning tricks, you’re always hoping the next client has deeper pockets than the last. It’s another average night at the club where Anora (or Ani, as she prefers) works—luring gents into private rooms for a dance, sneaking smoke breaks between men, and laughing with the other girls about the latest batch of creeps. Ani, the clubs only Rusophone, is handed her next assignment—entertain Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) a spoiled young VIP celebrating his birthday. He’s in New York on his parents’ dime, living large before heading back to Moscow to join the family business. Ani doesn’t think much of it at first, rich Johns are a dime a dozen, but Vanya is about to turn her life upside down.

Sean Baker has always portrayed society’s fringes with nuance and empathy, capturing the lives of marginalized characters in all their raw, human complexity. More specifically, Baker has dedicated most of his career to destigmatizing sex workers, as evident in previous titles Tangerine and Starlet. With his latest film, the Palme d’Or winning Anora, he approaches the story of a hustling escort’s clash with the ultra-rich as a modern day fairytale. Rather than the gritty, inconspicuous, and almost documentary-like style of his previous movies, Anora lives on a grand scale. It’s packaged for the mainstream audience to experience a lifestyle they may not be comfortable with. Instead of a bleak, strenuous struggle to escape from societal trappings, we get a screwball mashup of home invasion, rom-com, and Cinderella story—a relentless pursuit of the modern American Dream.

Image Courtesy of TIFF

New York City plays a crucial supporting character in the film, from the Brighton Beach Russian enclave to the hustling L-train zombies, right down to the inevitable Dimes Square dirtbags. The Red Scare of it all is hard to ignore: TaTu’s “All The Things She Said” drops at just the right moment, Ivy Wolk (friend of the pod, of course) grabs a few quick laughs, and honestly, the only thing missing is an Anna Khachiyan cameo as Ani’s mom to complete the full meta-circle. 

Baker’s signature slice-of-life realism thrives on his street-casting of non-actors and unknowns, paired with a seasoned performer—like Willem Dafoe’s tenderness in The Florida Project or Simon Rex’s charisma in Red Rocket—creating a dynamic that grounds his films in authenticity. After watching Mikey Madison command the screen in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream, Baker knew she was the perfect choice to lead the Anora ensemble. Madison inhabits a character teeming with multitudes, effortlessly navigating Ani’s layers with both abandon and precision. Her fearless vulnerability allows us not only to witness Ani’s reaction to the chaos around her, but to feel the underlying emotion that flickers beneath her stoic exterior. Whether she’s pole dancing, falling in love, fighting for survival, screaming in rage, or crying in a car, Madison’s portrayal remains infallible. Her skill is only matched by her deference for the sex worker community, ensuring that Ani is a fully realized, dignified human being with resilience and agency at every turn.

Madison’s performance is elevated by one of the strongest ensembles in recent memory. As Ani falls deeper for the oligarch heir, his rag-tag crew of henchmen-slash-babysitters become entangled in their love story. Vache Tovmasyan‘s Garnik steals every scene with a laugh, channeling a Home Alone-era Joe Pesci. Karren Karagulian, a fixture in Baker’s films, sidesteps the usual villain trope, imbuing his character Toros with a goofy, Mr. Bean-like charm. And then there’s Yura Borisov as Igor, quietly stealing the show with his understated yet deeply affecting portrayal of a sensitive gangster. Characters that could have easily cast a dark and violent stain on Anora’s story are instead unfolded as a modern day Three Stooges.

At every turn, Baker evades predictability, garnering complete control of the film’s tone. There’s not a single frame that feels indulgent or wasted: each shot has intention, each note of the score has weight of emotion, even the throwaway moments feel sharp. More than making a brilliant film, Baker gave us a masterclass in control, where nothing exists by accident, and somehow, even the chaos feels meticulously orchestrated. In an era where so many directors drown their films in excess, Baker proves that restraint is a far more powerful weapon, delivering something lean, incisive, and downright unforgettable.

Beyond the whirlwind romance and slapstick antics, there’s always the question of Anora’s fate, hovering like a storm cloud. Her stint as Vanya’s “very horny girlfriend” is, predictably, a temporary affair, but the fallout? That’s not something she can shake off with a quick costume change. As the film moves from laugh-out-loud absurdity to something far more sobering, Baker pulls off a balancing act few directors can: wrapping up the chaos with a punch of raw emotion that’s both gut-wrenching and strangely cathartic. The fun’s over, but the aftermath lingers—and in true Baker fashion, it leaves you wondering if anyone, especially Anora, ever really escapes the life they’ve been dealt. Maybe that’s the real trick here, pulling us into the comedy only to remind us that the joke was on us all along.