Mikey Madison in Anora (Neon)

Every Cinderella has a midnight, to paraphrase Billy Wilder, who put his adage to use in the appropriately named Midnight (1939), directed by the underrated Mitchell Leisen. That lesson is hammered home for a sex worker whose stage name is Ani—her given name is Anora. And here’s another axiom: Directing is 90% casting, which is the main reason this film remains engaging through its ups and downs.

The level of acting in director Sean Baker’s films has skyrocketed since his breakout Tangerine, in which he let his cast run wild on the streets of Los Angeles. In The Florida Project, the single mother/protagonist played by Bria Vinaite was cast from Instagram. Although she had a vivacious presence, the limitations of her acting range were laid bare (though that movie featured MVP Willem Dafoe). So far, the winner for the best all-around Baker film belongs to 2021’s Red Rocket, with its stellar ensemble of professionals and local Texans who added realism and flavor to a spiky tale of an ex-porn star turned drug dealer turned groomer.

The acting in Baker’s latest film, which he wrote and edited, is all around unpredictable. Rarely has a scripted film felt so spontaneously enacted. However, as in some of his previous work, the filmmaker gives his cast free rein to ramble on to the point of redundancy, which is the main reason the storyline runs too long at 138 minutes. Thanks to humorous set pieces along the way, the film picks up but then loses steam before regaining momentum.

In a Midtown Manhattan club, stripper Ani (Mikey Madison) knows how to work the crowd and lure men to buy more booze and join her in a private room for a lap dance. (I have it on good authority that in her scenes with the clients, Madison was in complete control, bumping and grinding on many laps; no intimacy coordinator was necessary.) However, it is with the young Russian spendthrift Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) that she breaks a rule and becomes more physical on the job. After all, he’s closer to her age than the other clubbers and by far the most wide-eyed and enthusiastic. Rumor has it that he’s loaded. (It doesn’t hurt that he thinks she’s beautiful; who doesn’t want to hear that?) Though she’s not fluent, Ani knows some of Vanya’s lingo; her grandmother spoke Russian.

After a few private off-hour one-on-ones in his gated mansion, the lanky, 21-year-old party boy/child heir pays Ani, who is a few years older at 23, $10,000 for the week to pose exclusively as his girlfriend. Ani negotiates the price to $15,000. He agrees and then admits he would have gone as high as $30K had she not folded so soon. (According to an interview in Indiewire, Baker only realized during production the similarities to Pretty Woman.)

During this whirlwind, sex-filled week, he decides on a cocaine-induced whim to fly his clique and Ani to high-end Las Vegas on his family’s private jet. (Does he need any type of boost? He has enough high energy to spare.) Yet what happens in Vegas does not remain in Vegas for long. After a night of booze, drugs, and sex (his lovemaking style could be described as “jackrabbit”), he proposes to Ani. She only realizes that he may be serious when he asks her a second time. Off they go to a wedding chapel, where she says her vows in cut-off shorts and an ivory bustier.

All hell breaks loose when his family back in Russia finds out that he married someone they refer to as a prostitute, if not a whore, causing an amateur goon squad to invade Vanya’s home, demanding that he and Ani go to the courthouse to file an annulment, willingly or not. They offer her $10,000 in cash if she agrees to annul the marriage. Vanya shows his true colors and flees the scene while Ani, left to defend herself, puts up a feisty fight. There will be a broken nose and a lot of destruction in the living room—one assailant describes her as a “hostage from hell.”

Strangely, the street smarts and assertiveness that Ani has at her fingertips in the beginning disappear midway. She somehow loses her savvy and doesn’t realize she actually has some power. Her marriage to Vanya is legal, after all, and she has already Googled Vanya’s father, giving her an idea of how much the oligarch’s empire is worth. The screenplay further undermines her intelligence by having her agree to such an incredibly low-ball offer of $10K for the annulment. (She could have credibly countered with something in the seven figures.) Viewers will also lose count of how many times she has opportunities to escape from the thugs. Additionally, there is a plot hole that arises in a courtroom session that makes almost everyone besides Ani look more hapless than they already are.

Though Anora has the ingredients of an erstwhile screwball comedy—a dame with moxie, class conflict, knockabout comedy, and sidekicks as dumb as door nails—it could use some of Vanya’s nose candy for a needed zip. Nevertheless, there are enough buoyant comedic set pieces to make you forget momentarily that the mayhem flags, while the thumping musical soundtrack helps push along the loosey-goosey pace.

Anora will be released in the United States on October 18.