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.

Thanks to NEON

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Thanks to NEON

When Sean Baker won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for his new film, Anorahe dedicated the prize to “all sex workers, past, present and future.” It was a fitting shout-out from a director who put transgender sex workers at the center of his buddy comedy Mandarine and cast Simon Rex as a devious ex-porn star Red rocket.

In film after film, Baker has tried to portray sex work honestly, without the usual judgments or stigmas. But he’s also a master of comedic mayhem, and he loves telling stories about strivers and dreamers and putting them in situations that can blur the line between hilarious and poignant.

Anora is easily one of Baker’s funniest works – and ultimately one of the saddest. It’s a film full of tireless comedic energy and roiling emotions, both courtesy of its star, Mikey Madison, best known for her chilling supporting roles in Once upon a time…in Hollywood and the fifth Scream film. She gives a dazzling star performance here as Anora, or Ani, a twenty-something exotic dancer in an expensive strip club in Manhattan.

Baker immerses us in this world of neon lights and exposed flesh, but his view of Ani and her fellow dancers at work is humorous and distant rather than stimulating. It’s a job, and Ani is very good at it, as we see when she stumbles exhaustedly home to Brooklyn every morning to sit still for a few hours.

Ani is flirty and disarming with her customers but no-nonsense with everyone else, especially the boss, Jimmy, who bursts into the locker room one day to announce, “I have a kid who wants someone who speaks Russian.”

That child who has to speak Russian is a young man named Ivan, played by a wonderful Mark Eydelshteyn. Ani speaks a little Russian – she is Uzbek-American – and she and Ivan hit it off.

It’s not long before Ani is sleeping with him on the side for extra cash, and judging by his parents’ waterfront mansion in Brighton Beach, Ivan Certainly has some extra money. He is the son of a Russian oligarch and leads a life full of partying and coke snorting.

Boisterous and immature, he takes Ani by private jet to Vegas, where they tie the knot. It’s a fairytale romance, until Ivan turns out to be more frog than prince.

Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that some of the men working for Ivan’s father in New York are not too happy to hear that he has married, in their words, “a prostitute.” From there, Anora turns from an outrageous comedy into a full-fledged action film, starting with an almost half-hour set in which violence is used in a way that is both funny and disturbing.

Baker plays with fire here, pushing the comedic chaos far past the point of comfort and sometimes putting his characters, including Ani, in real danger. Still, you sense that Ani will pull through, and not just because of the daring and ferocity of Madison’s actions. Baker has no interest in making a film – and there have been too many – in which a female sex worker experiences collateral damage.

When cowardly Ivan flees and Ani and the other men go looking for him, Anora turns back into a kind of madcap 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 rough and sometimes tiring experience, but it’s also hugely vibrant and with a real sense of the cultural mix of Brighton Beach.

It’s great to see Armenian-American actor Karren Karagulian, one of Baker’s regular collaborators, popping up as one of the henchmen following Ivan. Russian actor Yura Borisov delivers some poignant surprises as a hired thug who is kinder and more thoughtful than meets the eye. As for Madison, she makes Ani a very complicated heroine: vulnerable, defiant, sweet and annoying.

No matter how hectic it is on the surface, Anora has an unmistakable moral undertone. This may be Baker’s latest sex worker story, but it’s also a tribute to workers in general. His compassion goes out forever to those just trying to do their jobs, whether it’s the cleaners who show up early every morning to clean up Ivan’s last mess, or a harried tow truck driver who almost derails the plot.

Maybe that’s why we feel so deeply for Ani. Even though everything around her is falling apart, she works too hard and is too hard-minded to let self-pity get the better of her. She may be chasing an impossible dream, but that makes her one of the most vibrant and memorable characters I’ve encountered this year.