The best film of 2024 is a chaotic, compelling and captivating Cinderella story called Anora. Sean Baker brilliantly demonstrates once again why he’s one of the best filmmakers around and it’s no surprise why this masterpiece was crowned the Palme d’Or winner at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Sean Baker wrote and directed the best film of the year!

Twentysomething Russian-American stripper Ani (Mikey Madison) seductively strips her way through life at a Brooklyn strip club. Although schlepping from Brighton Beach to a Brooklyn strip club, Ani’s nocturnal nuanced life doesn’t seem to bother her as she maintains great company at the club and makes good money. One night, Ani’s boss approaches her as some clients are interested in a Russian-speaking, exotic dancer and Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn) is simply smitten upon meeting Ani, drowning her with what appears to be an endless supply of money. After privately exchanging numbers at the club, Ani soon makes a house call to Vanya’s mansion and quickly discovers her newest (and best) client is the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.

Vanya can’t control himself and insists on paying Ani for a two-week-long girlfriend experience while he’s in America. The sudden romance of Ani and Vanya soon blurs the line of transactional versus emotional relationship culminating in a whirlwind, wild weekend in Vegas. Without a care in the world, they come back to New York playing videogames and lounging around carefree in their Manhattan mansion enjoying the perks of the Zakharov wealth. However, the happy honeymoon takes a backseat once the Zakharov family finds out and discovers their baby boy married a stripper putting their family’s reputation at risk. Vanya’s handler Toros (Karren Karagulian) is tasked with getting things under control and sends henchmen Garnick (Vache Tomasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov), but trouble ensues resulting in a night-long search party. Can love triumph over Oligarchy or was this a terrible, transactional tragedy?

Anora amazes you from beginning to finish with one of the most captivating, compelling character-driven dramadies in the 21st Century. Sean Baker’s magnum opus obliterates the screen with charismatic, candid characters that continuously leave you speechless. The sleek, stylish script is pitch-perfect and resonates instantaneously much like Quentin Tarantino and Shane Black with its clever characters. Sean Baker boasts yet again with another sensational story that leaves audiences yearning for more. Sean Baker is one of our generation’s greatest, underrated writer-directors.

Baker’s brilliant casting delivers once again with another raw and up-close portrayal of a sex worker with a star-making turn by Mikey Madison. Madison’s tour-de-force portrayal permeates with an entertaining, euphoric and enchanting performance that is easily one of the year’s best. For fans of Better Things, it was ever apparent that Madison would break through and she certainly delivers the goods with a showstopping, scene-stealing showcase in this titular starring role. Madison’s magnificent screen presence and vulnerability is equally complimented with Mark Eydelshteyn’s engaging, incredibly funny Vanya. His honesty and intellectual naivety teeters back n’ forth between incompetence, immaturity and carefree, which makes you love and hate him equally, especially when dealing with his father’s henchmen. Madison and Eydelshteyn are two young, stellar superstars that are a must watch!

Upon leaving this film, you will not stop discussing the performances of Karren Karagulian (Toros), Vache Tovmasyan (Garrick) and Yura Borisov (Igor) as well. Karagulian has been a Baker fan-favorite since Four Letter Words and much like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction & Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds, Karagulian kills it with a scene-stealing, centerpiece character. However, he isn’t the only award worthy supporting performance. Much like Ani and Toros, the role of Igor was specifically written with Yura Borisov in mind and absolutely fuels the non-stop chaos with another carefully-fleshed out captivate character. Despite the limited English speaking abilities of Yura Borisov and Mark Eydelshteyn, Baker boasts another amazing ensemble of unconventional actors from all walks of life. Whether he’s scouring European cinema or finding nonprofessional actors, Sean Baker continues to create another unapologetic, unjudgmental and non-exploitive gaze on sex workers. Although Baker continues to create compelling stories about marginalized individuals and addresses dark subject matters, Baker balances his storytelling abilities amazingly between rigorous honesty and vivid imagination with hilarious moments sprinkled throughout.

Despite initially perceiving some characters as vain, one-dimensional or even trainwrecks, he seamlessly brings the characters full circle to deliver fully-fleshed, entertaining characters that you’re going to enthusiastically love and hate their behavior. Even while walking out of the critic’s screening, none of the people in my elevator could stop talking about the dialogue and mentioning super specific moments. Anora is an absolute must see with its amazing anamorphic, choreographed cinematography. The color, composition and the characters capture the grittiness of New York almost akin to classic 70s cinema, but with the flair of modern filmmaking resulting in an unforgettable film that you will want to rewatch on the big screen. Easily one of the Top 10 Films of the year!

4 out of 4 stars.

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