Neon Lights: Sean Baker's Dazzling Odyssey of Empathy and Laughter

Sean Baker has carved a niche as a filmmaker powered by empathy for the overlooked and forgotten corners of American society. Through his lens, we are allowed to immerse ourselves in worlds that most other movies would paint in the broadest strokes, or reduce to simple cliches. His compassion is a cornerstone in films like "Tangerine" and "The Florida Project," where the marginalized take center stage and are allowed to be as messy and complex as anyone with a movie built around them.

A Captivating Blend of Heart and Hilarity

Navigating the Complexities of Life and Work

Like most of Baker's work, "Anora" is fascinated by jobs, and how they define social status and perspective. The title character, played with humor and spikiness by Mikey Madison, is an erotic dancer and sex worker, operating out of a classy-ish New York City club by night and living a humdrum existence by day. Her encounter with a carefree trust fund kid, the offspring of a disconcertingly wealthy Russian family, changes her life in record time: First, she's spending the week with him, and then they're married. And then his powerful family sends a few goons over to the mansion to force them into an annulment. To say Anora doesn't go quietly would be the understatement of the decade.The delightful magic trick at the center of "Anora" is that it begins as a whirlwind romance between two kids who would probably know better if they were a little bit older and wiser. Baker's swirling camera and high energy is intoxicating. These early scenes are sexy and fun and capture the bliss and ignorance of being young enough to delight in your poor choices. But Baker is a filmmaker who can weaponize stress with the power of a Safdie brother or two, and the film's abrupt genre shift (which happens later than you'd expect, but early enough to define the film's carefully orchestrated tone) into hair-raising screwball tension hits with sobering, hilarious force.

Laughter and Heartbreak in Equal Measure

Without going too far into plot details, "Anora" is less the story of an inconvenient marriage between two love birds as it is a hilarious examination of how working folks of all stripes become the witting and unwitting pawns of people with too much power. Madison's Anora soon finds herself surrounded by her in-laws' muscle, including the commanding Toros (Karren Karaguilan), the bumbling Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), and the observant but silent Igor (Yea Borisov), as they journey across the boroughs of New York City through a quickly escalating series of events where things go from complicated to impossible. This foursome — who really have no business being in the same room together, let alone crammed into one SUV — is the stuff of comedy dreams. Their transformation from enemies to reluctant allies to something resembling co-workers on their dreary, confusing mission to appease the will of absent rich employers is a comedy goldmine.While the building blocks here couldn't be more traditional, with the best jokes relying on the misunderstanding of motivations between the quartet, Baker's roving camera supplies the modern energy that has always defined him a filmmaker. Every location feels alive, populated by minor characters who feel authentic and uncanny little details that provide speed bumps both silly and tragic. As the stakes escalate, the comedy is matched by an addictive sense of stress. Because Baker allows these characters to exist in a world that feels so real, that escalation of gags takes on heart attack status. After all, a screwball comedy can't be fun for the people having to endure it, and "Anora" pokes us with this knowledge.

A Stirring Revelation of Empathy and Complexity

When the film decides to transition once again and double down on heartfelt and heart-shattering drama, you barely notice the shift. You're just invested in the journey, and when you realize the Trojan horse that has been quietly smuggled around beneath the "actual" plot, it's the kind of stirring revelation that makes the heart soar and ache in equal measure.Make no mistake: "Anora" is one of the most purely entertaining and pleasurable films of the year. It's a crowdpleaser, and a good time at the movies, especially for those who like their comedies to also be highwire genre exercises. However, it's also full of a Baker's usual obsessions and observations: his fascination with power dynamics, his empathy for sex workers, his dissection of American society. Everyone is working for someone else in "Anora." No one really seems to like their job very much, and they like their boss even less. Any escape route comes with an asterisk. Every task is something they'd rather not do, but do it they must. Everybody's got to serve somebody, and "Anora" realizes that the American dream of overnight success may be false, but the American reality of all of us being in this together, of the need to take care of one another, is more true than ever.By the time "Anora" reaches a conclusion that'll leave the optimists and pessimists at each other's throats in the post-film lobby conversation, it's firmly established Sean Baker as one of the most vital modern American filmmakers, and Mikey Madison as a leading lady to watch. This dazzling odyssey of empathy and laughter reminds us why we love cinema in the first place.