Sean Baker has spent his career making films about people who exist at the margins of America’s economic story, and Anora is his magnum opus — a film that earns its Palme d’Or through sheer vitality and a final 30 minutes that will hit you like a freight train.
Mikey Madison: A Star Is Born
As Anora ‘Ani’ Mikheeva, a Brooklyn sex worker who marries the impulsive son of a Russian oligarch, Madison gives a performance of extraordinary range. She’s funny, guarded, romantic, fierce — and by the final scene, devastatingly real.
Baker’s Mastery of Tonal Shifts
The film’s middle section operates as screwball farce. Then, almost imperceptibly, the comedy curdles into something tender and sad. Baker’s control of this shift is what separates him from his contemporaries.
The TDW Verdict
One of the decade’s defining films. Urgent, alive, and impossible to forget.