In one of the most pleasant surprises of the year, Sean Baker picked up the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his latest feature Anora, marking the first American film to do so since Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. The Starlet, Tangerine, The Floria Project, and Red Rocket director has carved out a fascinating niche in indie cinema exploring sex work in a thrilling, sensitive, humorous way. His latest follows Mikey Madison’s character as a stripper from Brighton Beach who elopes with the son of a Russian oligarch, and whose family travels to New York to force an annulment. Ahead of an October 18 release from NEON, the first trailer has now arrived.
Luke Hicks said in his review, “From then on, Anora is a riotous chase, a nonstop, clusterfuck, screaming-match rollercoaster that doesn’t let you breathe until the final minutes, when it also manages to stop your heart in still, spectacular silence. The cast just gets better and better as more characters file in, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, and Vache Tovmasyan all playing outlandish and disarmingly timid henchmen, each of which would be the best performance in most other films (though Borisov wins the tight race among the group).”
Watch the trailer below: