With Anora, Sean Baker has made a film of vibrant truths, many of which are uncomfortable, so it’s a good thing he’s also made one of the year’s best comedies.

Devouring almost every scene, Mikey Madison’s title character is a standout creation, and her raid on the awards season shouldn’t come as a surprise. While she’s vocal in promoting the rights of and respect for sex workers at ceremonies and on the press tour, Anora throws more than the world of escorts and strip clubs at the screen. It’s an unexpected thrill ride of a film intent on challenging perceptions with popping New York visuals and the occasional fish-eye panoramic shots capturing its competing characters.

Anora (she insists “Ani”) Mikheeva is an early-20s stripper making her way in a Russian-American neighbourhood of Brooklyn. When, as a Russian speaker, she is introduced to the son of a Russian oligarch, she quickly falls into his hyper-wealthy world. 

Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov prefers gaming and hedonistic weeks in New York to the study that’s brought him to the US and impulsively asks Ani to marry him. She impulsively accepts, but when the news of their Las Vegas marriage reaches Vanya’s family, it falls to his Armenian godfather, Toros, and his henchmen Garnik and Igor to annul the marriage. Or rather, get them to the court on time… Before Vanya’s parents land in the United States. 

As a Brit, it’s an eye-opener to hear the movie explode to the sounds of thumping Take That and Tattoo tracks, but it works brilliantly to create a world and pull viewers in. It has to because Anora is a film with much to say but no interest in lecturing. Baker is a far more talented filmmaker than that.

It’s 20 years since Closer pushed some Hollywood royalty into strip clubs and troubled critics more than awards. It wasn’t the first or last movie to go there, but time hasn’t been kind to that Mozart-inspired anti- romcom’s attempt to expose the complication of relationships with eroticism. The world has moved on from the early years of the 21st century. A lot.

That’s a comparison worth making because Anora is, first and foremost, difficult to compare to anything else, and second, if it weren’t such a reductive way to look at it, it would be a prime example of what an anti-romcom can be. While Closer is a cold treatment of love’s complications, Anora is warm. A quarter of the way through the century, culture, sensibilities, and (almost hourly during Anora’s release window) politics have changed. Anora doesn’t just point out that life and relationships – and our preconceptions – are complicated but forces us to think about them. It does that while being entertaining. That’s no small feat for Baker’s singular vision (as writer, producer, director and editor).

Also, Anora is far more salacious than other Award-tapping movies of its type, with exploitation and voyeurism and a lot of nudity that many filmgoers will find too much. 

While sex is one thing, other viewers may not be ready for what Anora ultimately is for most of its middle and final act: slapstick comedy. It’s a brilliant screwball romp, with light absurdity caught in frenetic shots of each well-drawn-out character: The concussed henchman, the uptight and desperate godfather, the uncooperative bride… 

So much of the film rests on the film’s superb cast playing generally unlikeable characters. Mark Eydelshteyn’s Vanya is every inch the archetypal playboy son of an oligarch permanently in a state of addled euphoria or pensive concentration. But like Ani, it’s hard not to get caught up in his love of life, no matter how shallow or transient. On the flip side, the journey of Yura Borisov’s Igor, so well conveyed through looks and a strong, quiet screen presence, is the vital core of decency running through a non-judgmental film. 

But mostly, it’s Madison’s Ani who sweeps us up with an uncompromising, open and raw performance as her streetwise character makes a huge mistake. Or is she streetwise, and does she make a mistake? 

The ending has drawn less controversy and even more confusion. It may boil down to how invested you become in Ani’s story — how much of her is just Brooklyn attitude? Does she believe that fairy tales can come true or fall for an opportunity that’s too good to be true? The answers shouldn’t be easy, and Anora lets the ambiguity settle in our minds long after the credits roll. For me, the ending’s release offered a not wholly satisfactory and so wholly acceptable ending. Like life, then. 

Everything has happened, and nothing has happened. Friends are gained and dropped, enemies are lovers, lovers are enemies, and nobody moves up or down. True, everything is transactional, but those silent credits speak volumes.