Sean Baker has spent his career telling stories about people who live on the edges of American life. With Anora, he returns to that territory with explosive energy and surprising tenderness. The result is a bittersweet, beautiful mess you will never forget.
The film follows Anora, or Ani as she prefers to be called, a twenty three year old Russian American sex worker living in Brighton Beach. She works long nights at a Manhattan strip club where her ability to speak Russian gives her a small advantage with certain clients. Her life moves in a steady rhythm of work, hustle, and survival.
Then she meets Ivan.
Ivan is the young son of a Russian billionaire who drifts through Brooklyn like someone who has never once worried about consequences. He has money, endless free time, and the emotional maturity of someone who has never been forced to grow up. Their meeting begins as a business transaction and quickly spirals into something far more chaotic.
What starts as a fantasy soon collides with a much harsher reality.
Anora feels like watching a collision between The Hangover and Uncut Gems, yet somehow it all works in Sean Baker’s hands. The film launches into a whirlwind of reckless decisions, frantic energy, and unpredictable humor that keeps the audience constantly off balance.
At the center of it all is Mikey Madison.
She is pure dynamite here. Madison carries this tragic comedic roller coaster with such ease that you are left wondering how she is not already headlining every film in Hollywood. Her performance anchors a perfect blend of gut wrenching sadness and laugh out loud absurdity that makes the story both ridiculously funny and quietly devastating.
Ani is loud, impulsive, stubborn, and fiercely determined to maintain control of her life even when the ground beneath her begins to shift. Madison captures that chaos beautifully. There is a toughness to the character, but also a vulnerability that slowly reveals itself through small moments of doubt and desperation.
The film hooks you immediately. Baker throws the audience straight into Ani’s world with a raw honesty that feels almost documentary like at times. The conversations overlap, the environments feel lived in, and the characters bounce off each other with unpredictable energy.
That authenticity has always been one of Baker’s greatest strengths.
His camera moves through Brooklyn streets, cramped apartments, and neon lit clubs with a sense of curiosity rather than judgment. Like his earlier films Tangerine and Red Rocket, Anora refuses to shame its characters or reduce them to easy stereotypes. Instead Baker allows them to exist as messy, complicated people who are simply trying to survive within the systems surrounding them.
The film quickly transforms into a frantic fish out of water story that becomes increasingly chaotic as events spiral out of control. There are moments of comedy here that rank among the funniest of the year. Baker has an incredible ear for naturalistic dialogue, allowing arguments and misunderstandings to build into explosive sequences that feel both absurd and painfully believable.
Yet beneath the humor lies something much heavier.
The story slowly reveals itself as a portrait of empty families, hollow promises, and people searching desperately for meaning. Ivan lives in a world where money solves every problem before it can even begin. Ani, on the other hand, has spent her entire life fighting for stability in a system that rarely offers it.
Their relationship becomes a collision between those two realities.
Baker is not interested in turning this into a glossy modern fairytale. In fact, the film seems determined to resist that temptation at every possible turn. Instead it explores how quickly dreams built on money and fantasy can collapse under the weight of real life.
What makes the film so powerful is its ability to balance ridiculous comedy with profound sadness. You will be hard pressed to find a film with a more perfectly calibrated mix of anguish and humor this year. One moment the audience is laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation. The next moment the emotional consequences of those choices begin to sink in.
That tonal balance is difficult to maintain, yet Baker manages it with remarkable control.
The supporting cast adds texture and unpredictability to the story, particularly the quiet presence of Igor, a character who slowly becomes an unexpected emotional counterpoint to the chaos unfolding around him. These relationships add depth to the narrative and allow the film to explore themes of class, loyalty, and dignity without ever becoming heavy handed.
Visually, Baker continues to demonstrate his talent for capturing the pulse of everyday life. The film glows with neon nightlife and cramped domestic spaces, creating a sense of intimacy that pulls the audience directly into Ani’s experience.
By the time the story reaches its final moments, the emotional impact lands with surprising force. When I walked out of the theater I immediately felt that rare sensation that only a handful of films create each year. The urge to tell everyone I know that they need to see this movie.
This is a bittersweet life presented in its rawest and most vulnerable form. Baker has crafted something deeply memorable here. Those messy character connections remind you why cinema matters in the first place.
Come awards season, Anora and Mikey Madison deserve to take their bows.
Comments