A sex worker marries the son of a Russian oligarch: NPR

Ani (Mikey Madison) is an exotic dancer who gets more than she bargained for when she marries the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn). Anora.

Courtesy of NEON

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Courtesy of NEON

When Sean Baker won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for his new film, AnoraHe dedicated the award to “all sex workers past, present and future.” It was a fitting salute from a director who put transgender sex workers front and center in his buddy comedy mandarin and cast Simon Rex as a scheming ex-porn star Red rocket.

In film after film, Baker has attempted to portray sex work honestly, without the usual judgment or stigma. But he's also a master of comic chaos and loves telling stories about strivers and dreamers and putting them in situations that can blur the line between hilarious and harrowing.

Anora is certainly one of Baker's funniest works – and ultimately one of the saddest. It's a film full of relentless comic energy and seething emotions, both thanks to its lead actor Mikey Madison, who is best known for her scary supporting roles Once upon a time…in Hollywood and the fifth Scream Film. She has a stunning lead role as Anora, or Ani, a 20-something exotic dancer in a high-priced strip club in Manhattan.

Baker plunges us right into this world of neon lights and exposed flesh, but his view of Ani and her fellow dancers at work is more humorous and distant than titillating. It's a job, and Ani is very good at it, as we see when she staggers exhausted home to Brooklyn every morning to get some shut-eye for a few hours.

Ani is flirty and disarming with her customers but matter-of-fact with everyone else, especially the boss Jimmy, who storms into the locker room one day and announces, “I have a kid who wants someone who speaks Russian.”

The boy who needs a Russian speaker is a young man named Ivan, played by a great Mark Eydelshteyn. Ani speaks a little Russian – she is Uzbek-American – and she and Ivan get along well.

It's not long before Ani starts sleeping with him on the side to make extra money, and judging by his parents' waterfront mansion in Brighton Beach, Ivan is definitely has a little more money. He is the son of a Russian oligarch and leads a life full of parties and privileged cocaine snoring.

Impetuous and immature, he whisks Ani away on a private jet to Vegas, where they tie the knot. It's a fairytale romance until it turns out Ivan is more of a frog than a prince.

Without going into too much detail, let's just say that some men who work for Ivan's father in New York aren't happy that he married what they call “a prostitute.” From there, Anora transforms from a demented screwball comedy into a full-fledged action film, beginning with a nearly half-hour stage play that uses violence in ways that are both funny and disturbing.

Baker is playing with fire here, pushing the comic chaos far beyond the limits of comfort and sometimes putting his characters, Ani included, in real danger. Still, you feel that Ani will make it, and not just because of the toughness and wildness of Madison's performance. Baker has absolutely no interest in making a film – and there have been too many – in which a sex worker becomes collateral damage.

When the cowardly Ivan escapes and Ani and the other men go looking for him, Anora once again morphs into something of a crazy chase thriller, influenced by everything from Preston Sturges to the Three Stooges to Martin Scorsese's classic New York Nocturne After hours. It's a bumpy and sometimes tiring experience, but also incredibly lively and with a real sense of Brighton Beach's cultural mix.

It's great to see Armenian-American actor Karren Karagulian, one of Baker's regular collaborators, show up as one of the henchmen tailing Ivan. Russian actor Yura Borisov delivers some poignant surprises as a hired gangster who is kinder and more considerate than you might think. As for Madison, Ani makes her a very complicated heroine: vulnerable, defiant, lovable and exasperating.

As hectic as it is on the surface, Anora has an unmistakable moral undertow. While this is Baker's latest story about a sex worker, it's also a tribute to workers in general. His sympathy forever extends to those just trying to do their job, be it the cleaners who show up early every morning to clean up Ivan's latest mess or a harried tow truck driver who nearly derails the plot.

Maybe that's why we feel so much for Ani. Even when everything is falling apart around her, she is too hardworking and stubborn to let self-pity get the better of her. She may be pursuing an impossible dream, but that makes her one of the most vivid and memorable characters I've encountered this year.