Anora

I am a huge fan of Sean Baker's films (my favorite is The Florida Project but Tangerine is a close second) because they are always provocative but humane character studies about people on the margins of society.  His latest, Anora, is no exception and I was really excited to see it last night at the Broadway last night with my nephew.  Anora "Ani" Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) is a Russian-American who lives in Brighton Beach with her sister and works as a high-end stripper at a club in Manhattan.  Because she speaks Russian, the owner of the club introduces her to Ivan "Vanya" Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, who hires her for a lap dance and then for sex at his family's mansion in Brooklyn.  After several nights together, he hires her to spend the week with him as his girlfriend and then proposes marriage so that he can get a green card to stay in America and avoid his controlling parents back in Russia.  They get married in Las Vegas and have a whirlwind romance before his minders Toros (Karren Karagulian), Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), and Igor (Yura Borisov), who have been lax in their supervision, are ordered by his father to deal with the situation.  Ani eventually proves that she has more class than the feckless Vanya and his wealthy parents (Aleksei Serebryakov and Darya Ekamasova).  This is surprisingly hilarious (I laughed out loud when Ani bests the two henchmen who are trying to subdue her) and incredibly poignant (the final scene is absolutely devastating but hopeful).  I especially loved the relationship between Ani and Igor because he sees the vulnerability behind Ani's bravura and she finds an unexpected ally against people who see her as transactional.  Madison gives one of the most magnetic performances I've seen in a long time (one that is garnering a lot of much deserved Oscar buzz) and Borisov is quietly powerful.  My only criticism is that the narrative sometimes drags in places, particularly the sequence where Ani and the henchmen wander around Brighton Beach searching for Vanya.  I loved this and highly recommend it (with the proviso that it is very explicit).