Sean Baker’s Anora (2024), winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and five Academy Awards, is a cinematic grenade disguised as a neon-lit rom-com. The film—a chaotic, compassionate, and deeply human exploration of desire, class, and self-reinvention—solidifies Baker’s reputation as America’s foremost chronicler of marginalized lives. Anchored by Mikey Madison’s career-defining performance as the titular stripper-turned-reluctant-heroine, Anora dismantles the fairy-tale tropes it initially embraces, revealing the jagged edges of aspiration in a world where transactional relationships masquerade as salvation.

A Cinderella Story in Reverse

The film opens in the glittering, grimy heart of Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, where Ani (Madison), a Russian-American exotic dancer, navigates the transactional rhythms of her job with weary pragmatism. Her life collides with Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), the coked-up, emotionally stunted son of a Russian oligarch, during a private session at Manhattan’s HQ club. What begins as a transactional arrangement—$15,000 for a week of faux-romance—spirals into a Vegas wedding, a whirlwind of luxury, and a collision course with Ivan’s ruthless family. Baker subverts the Pretty Woman template early: Ani’s sharp wit and street-smart resilience make her less a damsel than a reluctant participant in Ivan’s self-destructive fantasy. The couple’s “happily ever after” lasts roughly 48 hours before Nikolai Zakharov’s henchmen descend to annul the marriage by any means necessary—kidnapping, coercion, and dark comedy ensue.

Baker’s script thrives in these tonal shifts, blending screwball antics (think The Hangover meets After Hours) with moments of visceral tension. A 30-minute sequence in Ivan’s mansion—where Ani battles two bumbling Armenian enforcers while tied to a bed—is both hilariously absurd and unnervingly claustrophobic. The director’s signature vérité style, honed in films like The Florida Project and Tangerine, grounds even the most outlandish scenarios in emotional authenticity. Scenes are shot in real locations—a functioning strip club, a billionaire’s seaside estate, a snow-swept Coney Island boardwalk—creating a tactile sense of place that contrasts with Ani’s increasingly surreal predicament.

Mikey Madison: From Scream Queen to Scream

Madison, previously typecast as doomed victims in horror franchises (Scream, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), delivers a revelatory performance. Her Ani is a paradox: hardened by survival yet achingly vulnerable, her eyes flickering between calculated seduction and raw desperation. In one standout scene, she negotiates her “fee” with Ivan while straddling him, her voice a mix of Brooklyn bravado and quiet exhaustion. Later, trapped in the mansion, her screams—equal parts rage and terror—echo through sterile halls, a visceral reminder of the violence simmering beneath transactional intimacy.

Eydelshteyn’s Ivan, meanwhile, is a masterclass in tragicomic grotesquery. With his mangled English (“God bless America!” he moans during sex) and toddler-like entitlement, Ivan embodies the rot of generational wealth. Yet the actor injects fleeting pathos into the role, particularly during a drunken monologue about his fear of returning to Russia—a moment that hints at the fragility beneath his cartoonish exterior. The supporting cast shines, too: Yura Borisov, as Igor, a melancholic bodyguard, steals scenes with his wordless yearning, while Karren Karagulian’s Toros—a middleman torn between oligarchic loyalty and moral unease—adds layers to the film’s class critique.

The Politics of Fantasy

At its core, Anora is a scathing indictment of the American Dream’s hollow promises. Ani’s pursuit of upward mobility—through performative femininity, transactional love, and sheer force of will—mirrors the delusions of a culture obsessed with reinvention. The film’s visual language reinforces this: neon lights bathe early scenes in a candy-colored glow, symbolizing the seductive lie of easy transformation. By the third act, as a blizzard blankets Brooklyn, the palette shifts to icy blues and grays, mirroring Ani’s awakening to the futility of her Cinderella narrative.

Baker also interrogates the immigrant experience. Ani’s fractured Russian—a tool for survival in Brighton Beach’s enclaves—becomes a metaphor for her cultural dislocation. Her attempts to erase her heritage (“I’m American,” she snaps at Ivan) clash with the Zakharovs’ disdain for her “peasant” roots, culminating in a devastating confrontation where Nikolai’s wife (Darya Ekamasova) reduces Ani to a “dirty prostitutka”. These moments expose the hypocrisy of a system that fetishizes diversity while weaponizing class and ethnicity.

A Controversial Triumph

Anora’s acclaim has been tempered by backlash. Traditionalists decry its “vulgar” subject matter, while Ukrainian critics, including producer Alexander Rodnyansky, argue that its apolitical focus on pre-war Russia feels tone-deaf amid ongoing conflict. Yet these criticisms overlook the film’s deeper resonance. Baker’s decision to center a sex worker’s agency—Ani is neither victimized nor sanctified—challenges audiences to confront their own biases. The director’s Cannes dedication to “past, present, and future sex workers” underscores his commitment to destigmatizing marginalized voices.

The film’s final act, where Ani abandons her ring (and illusions) in a pawn shop, offers no easy redemption. Instead, she walks into a snowstorm, her future uncertain but her selfhood intact. It’s a defiantly ambiguous ending—one that rejects Hollywood’s penchant for tidy resolutions in favor of something messier, truer, and profoundly human.

Legacy and Lingering Questions

With its $6 million budget and lack of A-list stars, Anora’s Oscar dominance signals a shift in industry priorities—a hunger for stories that prioritize raw authenticity over CGI spectacle. Yet the film’s success also raises uncomfortable questions: Why does a white male director’s portrayal of marginalization garner more acclaim than stories told by the marginalized themselves? Can art transcend the politics of its moment, or does Anora’s avoidance of Ukraine’s war render it a relic of pre-invasion naïveté?

These contradictions don’t diminish the film’s power; they deepen it. Like Ani herself, Anora is flawed, messy, and unapologetically alive—a neon-soaked reminder that the most compelling stories often lie in the gaps between dreams and reality. As Baker told The New Yorker, “I want audiences to laugh, then feel guilty for laughing, then laugh again.” Mission accomplished.