Anora is an extremely fun film, something which could be gleaned from the pace of the trailer but not necessarily from director Sean Baker’s oeuvre. It does have many of the markers of his style — great soundtrack, great visuals, great dialogue — but this is possibly the most fun we’ve seen him have directing. Most importantly, this is possibly the most fun I’ve had in the cinema all year, which makes Anora’s heart-shattering revelations all the more compelling.

Our first glimpse of Anora establishes the slightly ironic, slightly indulgent tone of the film. This is a film swathed in neon lights and sequined lingerie: it is meant to capture and enchant you in the same way that Anora and her coworkers do their clients. Simultaneously we are shown the “other side” of sex work, the unglamorous and artificial one, an admittedly well-traversed setting in film and TV that is, nonetheless, done quite well here. Baker handles the sexuality of the film very delicately: at no point does it feel gratuitous or unnecessarily exploitative, despite the ample nudity. Questions of gender stay mostly in the background as he seems more comfortable focusing on class imbalance, which is familiar ground for him. Still, looking back at the last Baker feature with a female protagonist, The Florida Project, we see a similar eye for small nuances in performance — the flicker of an eye, the doubtful tone — that carry so much weight, that so subtly reinforce the glass ceilings our characters struggle beneath, until they inevitably explode.

“This is a film swathed in neon lights and sequined lingerie: it is meant to capture and enchant you”

The biggest difference in Anora is that Baker now has the studio backing to go all out. As mirrored in our director’s increased budget we see the excess and the excitement that comes with money, with being rich. Not just any kind of rich, though: Russian oligarch rich. We are thrust into extravagant parties, wild benders, luxury spas and hotel rooms; we follow Anora as she follows her mysterious new client Vanya down the rabbit hole, wielding only her body as he whisks her away from the sordid strip club with its sweaty customers and jealous coworkers, away from her unfulfilling home life. This is not to say that the film glamorizes its subjects in the slightest — injustices and disparities are made painfully apparent. Vanya is, more often than not, the butt of the joke. Anora, despite being heartbreakingly out of her depth, is not made out to be a wide-eyed victim, nor a scheming parasite, nor an ignorant dreamer. Perhaps she is naive, a little opportunistic; but so is everybody else. They are all, for fear of appealing too greatly to review cliche, very human.

Anora and Vanya’s fairytale connection is quick, questionable, but believable. Baker intentionally blurs the line between financial, sexual and romantic attraction- after all, can they ever be fully distinct? This fundamentally transactional relationship plays with the power dynamics not only found in opposing financial situations but in gender, age, experience and national privilege. For the most part it seems glaringly obvious that it’s all too good to be true, but there is a part of you that cannot help but be charmed.

“Much has been said already about the coldness of the film”

Being charmed has a lot to do with Mark Edelstein’s wonderful performance as Vanya. He is truly captivating and scarily convincing — I can say for one that I met a lot of Vanyas at school, but there is a certain universal 13-year-old-ness to him that will surely remind you of someone you know. We must also mention Mikey Madison, who you might have caught in 2022’s Scream 5. As most critics have been raving, her performance in Anora is nothing short of incredible. She brings immense nuance and power to her role, and she is so clearly the nucleus of the film — Baker notes in an interview that he intentionally put her in almost every shot — that in the hands of a less convincing actress everything could very easily have fallen apart.

Of course, underneath that all runs the undercurrent of despair and modern tragedy that Baker does best. The twist of fate in Anora is slow, a long and arduous turn of the knife in your side that feels sharper and sharper as the music dies down and morning nears. Much has been said already about the coldness of the film; some criticism has been lobbied at the lack of motivation given to, and therefore empathy we are able to feel for, Anora herself, and while I can agree to an extent that there was room for a firmer establishment of why exactly she is so willing to accept and fight for Vanya, her portrayal is handled so subtly and skillfully that perhaps we don’t need Baker to spell it out for us. Yes, the film does slow down towards the middle, perhaps excessively leaning into pastiche, and a lot of that space could have been filled with insight into Anora as a person. But I left the film with a deep affection for our lead and just enough of a glimpse into her character to make those conclusions for myself.

With all the Oscar buzz surrounding this film, it will soon become difficult to avoid Anora within the film world. Seeing it at the BFI Southbank, all of us sitting in stunned silence once the credits started, was one of the best cinema experiences I have had in a long time, and a reminder of the sheer unifying ability of a great film. Anora enthralls, bewilders, endears and breaks you. While it may not be perfect, it most certainly deserves to be in the running as one of the best movies of the year.