Anyone searching for a new war to wage on the battlefield of identity politics need look no further than the works of Sean Baker. A straight white man from New Jersey who seems almost exclusively interested in people who don’t share his outer-casing, the auteur’s films are open invites to controversy, with their nonchalant attitude toward the sex trade merely serving as a shot across the bow. His fascination with cultural subsets and microcosms has led him to spin all kinds of yarns that are ostensibly not his own, from tales of Chinese immigrants (Take Out) to transgender sex workers (Tangerine) to six-year-old girls reinterpreting the shenanigans of The Little Rascals (The Florida Project). The modest budget behind his extended project is undoubtedly a reason why he keeps getting away with violating a modern moral faux pas, but it’s not the only one. Empathy goes a long way, and whatever sordid or foolish situations his characters find themselves in, Baker never regards them with anything less than respect and fascination.   

That sense of genuine admiration seems to morph into infatuation when Ani (Mikey Madison) is on screen, introduced to us mid-lap dance as the opening credits unfurl right beside her luminous face. Working nights at a Russian-speaking strip club in Brooklyn, Anora’s protagonist has seemingly touched the glass ceiling of her financial existence when a chance encounter with Vanya (Mark Eidelstein), the son of a Russian oligarch, leads to a windswept quasi-romance. The strangers in a strange land have barely exchanged impulsive nuptials when the mother country comes crashing in, embodied by a small crew of muscle men sent to whisk Vanya back to his home country, and annul the marriage along the way. Ani has other plans; after all, isn’t a good man worth fighting for?

That last bit is a joke that risks being a spoiler, but Anora is strikingly unambiguous about the nature of its central courtship. A horny teenager trapped in the body of a gangly 20-something, Vanya is no one’s idea of prince charming, and Eidelstein plays him with a bratty, try-hard disaffection that never loses sight of his glaring immaturity. The film’s trailer describes Anora as “a love story by Sean Baker,” and while Vanya’s boorish behavior would seem to preclude such a distinction, it’s not the spoiled rich kid who’s the apple of Ani’s eye. That would be his wallet, or rather the socio-economic upgrade that it represents, an outwardly callus framework that’s played with all the momentum and elation of a more traditional romantic two-hander. The blaring pop soundtrack and kinetic camera work of the movie’s opening hour are rapturous and enveloping, hitting the cinematic marks of any whirlwind courtship, though the love affair is with upward mobility rather than anything tall, dark and handsome. 

That sugar-rush energy comes prepackaged with a thudding crash right around the hour mark, a tonal pivot point that sees the movie’s break-neck pacing nearly grind to a halt. Ushering in Act 2 with a home invasion scene that seems to go on for eternity is a great way to throw cold water on the viewer, and despite Baker earning conceptual points for his bifurcated structure, one can’t help but miss the initial charge. It’s replaced with a screwball descent into a curious sidedoor of New York’s underbelly, and while comparisons to After Hours and the films of the Safdie brothers are unmissable, Anora, perhaps intentionally, lacks both their thrust and delirium. Underscoring the fleeting nature of the American/Russian dream feels important, but so is engaging an audience. Baker ensures that his points get across, but he sacrifices plenty of propulsion in the process. 

Affording the viewer time to stop and smell the dingy street corner does come with its benefits, and no one is better at creating distinct social environments than Baker. The grimy pocket of New York he’s located here is a world unto its own, and the interplay between characters reveals layers of backstory without ever relying on plodding exposition, feeling both lived-in and effortless. This verite style is carefully peppered with moments of zany humor that manage to sidestep the otherwise documentary-lite filmmaking with moments of broad comedy, including a courtroom scene that feels pulled straight from My Cousin Vinny. Never a setting that this particular band of chuckleheads was set to thrive in, the proceedings are complicated by the ongoing inebriation of a central character, a grace note that doubles as a guiding principle. Even when fanciful plot machinations make it difficult, Anora remains committed to something as concrete as the time it would take to recover from an all-night bender, a push-pull that gives the film a unique paradigm of its own.

The danger that Ani faces falls short of that level of sweaty realism, though the unwillingness to seriously put Madison’s character in harm’s way might just be the product of falling in love with a performance. The movie at large is clearly enthralled with her, and it’s not hard to see why; possessed with a steely resolve that somehow never tarnishes her effervescent veneer, Madison’s vivacity streaks across the screen like a comet in the night sky. The favorite to win Best Actress at next year’s Academy Awards, the performer pulls off the highwire act of alerting the audience to her grift without losing their affinity, a tricky balance that could only be accomplished with the winds of charm in your sails. She’s got plenty, and our collective investment in her striving is the greatest emotional asset in a movie that would otherwise be lacking in the pathos department.

It’s not as though sympathy for the conman is an unusual proposition, especially a scammer as simultaneously blessed with charisma and burdened with misfortune as Ani. It’s the alchemy here that makes Anora novel, a morality play filtered through a 1940’s Ernst Lubitsch studio comedy, then cosplayed as a swooning, sparkling liaison. Baker is quite the chemist, but the allure of the recipe might be more delicious than the dish itself. While never less than engaging and occasionally rapturous, Anora’s ultimate denouncement of global capitalism is a tad obvious, and presenting a socio-economic power grab as an affair of the heart has diminishing returns. It works like gangbusters on an intellectual level, but an early visual metaphor here that’s meant for our heroine might be more apt for the film at large.

Twirling and entwined under a massive screen that doubles as a ceiling, Ani and Vanya are treated to a mesmerizing firework show that’s actually just a digital recreation. At once a symbol of the very real limitations of our protagonist’s ascendancy, it also captures the kaleidoscopic promise of a flick that initially feels capable of anything, only to have the barriers around it shrink as the runtime progresses. Baker may be viewing the onscreen proceedings from a bird’s eye view, but his movie ultimately illustrates the very same lesson that his characters are forced to learn. If it seems too good to be true then it probably is, and though the rare few truly can have it all, you’re probably not one of them. Baker’s unwavering affection for this bumbling band of misfits is the primary reason he keeps getting to tell these types of stories, and, more importantly, why they keep working so well. You just might not share his endearment.