海角大神

鈥淎nora,鈥� written and directed by Sean Baker, is a startlingly empathetic film about an exotic dancer in a New York 鈥済entlemen鈥檚 club.鈥� The reason it鈥檚 startling is that we鈥檙e used to seeing sexually explicit material like this sensationalized onscreen. But Baker is a humanist 鈥� there is nothing exploitative about what he does here. He鈥檚 after deeper emotional truths. Perhaps this is why 鈥淎nora鈥� has been internationally acclaimed. It won the Palme d鈥橭r at Cannes, that festival鈥檚 highest honor, and rightly so.

When we first encounter Anora (Mikey Madison), or Ani, as she wants to be called, she is plying her trade while also keeping a sharp eye on the men鈥檚 wallets and the clock. Because she speaks Russian 鈥� courtesy of her grandmother, who never learned English 鈥� she is put together with a new club member, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), a goofball 21-year-old who, she finds out, is the son of a billionaire Russian oligarch. 鈥淵ou work in a cool place,鈥� he tells her. Soon, as his private dancer, she is working in an even cooler place 鈥� the oceanside manse he alone occupies while his parents are in Russia.

A spoiled scamp, Ivan seems younger than 21 and barely speaks English. When he asks Ani her age, she tells him, probably truthfully, that she鈥檚 23. He half-seriously replies, 鈥淵ou act like you鈥檙e 25.鈥�

Ani tells Ivan he is funny 鈥� as in, ha-ha funny 鈥� and we sense that, unlike most of the blandishments she hands out to customers, this is a compliment she means. Despite her street smarts, she鈥檚 both flummoxed and flattered by this guy. When he impulsively asks her to marry him, she accepts the offer, warily at first, and then wholeheartedly.

It鈥檚 a madcap Cinderella fantasy that, of course, is bound to collapse when Ivan鈥檚 parents find out. Enraged and en route to New York, they assign a pair of trusted local fixers, the Armenian Toros (Karren Karagulian) and his burly comrade-in-arms Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), along with Igor (Yura Borisov), a thuggish-looking Russian, to annul the marriage.

Not so easy. Screaming at the top of her lungs and biting her captors, Ani insists she is Ivan鈥檚 rightful wife. Ivan, meanwhile, without Ani, has fled the scene. Much of the remainder of the film 鈥� which also deftly paints a fully lived-in portrait of the Brighton Beach Russian community 鈥� is about how this gaggle of misfits track him down.

鈥淎nora鈥� seamlessly interweaves a full range of tones, from the comic to the tragicomic. The entire cast is altogether extraordinary. Much of the film, especially once the fixers arrive, plays almost like slapstick. And yet, even at its giddiest, which also includes a jaunt to a quickie wedding chapel in Las Vegas, Baker never once loses sight of the humanity of these people.

This sensibility has always been a hallmark of Baker鈥檚 films, most notably 鈥淭he Florida Project,鈥� which told the story of children living in a rundown motel in the shadow of Walt Disney World. He has a feeling for lives lived on the margins, and what one must do to survive. Ani is such a powerful creation because Baker and Madison, without stooping to sentimentality, understand the character鈥檚 pathos: Given a glimpse of a glittering new life, she desperately wants to save it. She is not being mercenary, not anymore. She genuinely wants to be happy. She wants to be a wife. It is her pride.

The irony of 鈥淎nora鈥� is that Ani is seeking normalcy in a world ill-fitted to meet her desires. When the fixers, and then Ivan鈥檚 parents, call her out as a prostitute, she explodes. She feels betrayed because that is not how she sees herself. We don鈥檛 see her that way, either.

And neither, it turns out, does Igor, who, with his bald pate and hoodie, appears so quietly menacing. Like everybody else in 鈥淎nora,鈥� he is not what we initially take him to be. This refusal to stigmatize characters is the hallmark of Baker鈥檚 art. The scenes between Ani and Igor, which develop from contempt on her part to something far more emotionally layered, are the compassionate core of this film. I鈥檝e rarely encountered a scene that moved me as completely and complicatedly as this film鈥檚 final moments. Baker isn鈥檛 merely demonstrating a sympathy for these people. He is expressing a profound sympathy for the bewildering convolutions of the human condition.

Peter Rainer is the Monitor鈥檚 film critic. 鈥淎nora鈥� is rated R for strong sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, pervasive language, and drug use. It is in English, Russian, and Armenian, with English subtitles.