‘Anora’ review: Stripper Cinderella story is one of the best movies of the year

movie review

ANORA

Running time: 139 minutes. Rated R (strong sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, pervasive language, and drug use). In theaters.

It’s easy to fall hard for Mikey Madison in “Anora,” director Sean Baker’s exceptional film about a Brooklyn exotic dancer.

The 25-year-old actress has been working for about a decade, with roles in the “Scream” reboot and the Pamela Adlon series “Better Things,” among many others.

But Madison’s unforgettable performance as Anora, who prefers the Americanized nickname Annie, is, to anyone with eyes and ears, her star-is-born moment.

An elixir of charm, hilarity, rudeness, guts and grace, she’s a modern-day Liza in “Arthur,” Marisa Tomei in “My Cousin Vinny.”

Only there’s an important difference. In the end, when Annie wearily exhales after a whirlwind week of romance, fear and crushing disappointment, she crumbles — and the viewer goes right along with her.

Miraculous Madison is part of a trove of standing-ovation elements in the latest movie from the director of “The Florida Project.” Endlessly entertaining and frequently hysterical, “Anora” is one of the year’s best films and a formidable Oscar contender.

Like caviar, it’s not for everybody. This unsentimental, less-straightforward “Pretty Woman” starts with a panning shot of topless lap dancers and includes plenty of sex (the funny kind) and choice language that’s the opposite of politically correct.

Like caviar, give it a go.

Annie’s G-strings-to-riches journey begins late one night at a strip club, where a 21-year-old high roller requests a girl who can speak Russian.

The guy’s Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), an oligarch’s spoiled son who’s on vacation — and on a bender — in New York before he begins working for the family business.

Annie grew up in NYC, and had a Russian grandmother. So, it’s love at first nyet.

Boyish, eccentric and fun, Ivan pays handsomely for his dance and then asks to see Annie again the next day. All about the Benjamins, she obliges.

In the morning, Annie arrives, awestruck, at his sleek mansion with God knows how many rooms and its own elevator. When Ivan boldly asks if she can be his girlfriend for a week — to the tune of $15,000 — the ritzy incentives are irresistible. Heck, they hop on a private jet to Vegas. He proposes.

Baker has billed his movie as a “love story,” and about now we start to wonder: Is she in love with Ivan? His money? A previously unimaginable life? And is Ivan really in love with Annie? Or the sex? Or his last gasps of carefree youth? Maybe the relationship is the real deal.

Because of Eydelshteyn’s charisma and innocence — not to mention the duo’s chemistry — we’re as whipped up in the fantasy as Annie is. And then, like summer to winter, “Anora” sharp-turns into an altogether different movie.

The cortisol flows in the stressful second act, which ropes in Ivan’s father Nikolai’s aggressive hired thugs: Toros (Karren Karagulian), Igor (Yura Borisov) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan). With an irate Annie in tow, they embark on a frantic search for Ivan throughout the city.

The gruff trio’s arc is the most surprising of the film.

At first we downright hate them; they’re mean security guards who upset the heroine and shatter our starry-eyed illusion. Soon, we start to find their quirks funny. And then we movingly realize they might be the only decent-ish men Annie’s encountered all week. Like Anora, they’re just normal people trying to scrape by.

Karagulian, as the bumbling boss, and mysterious Borisov do especially fine work. Baker’s writing and direction, gorgeously chaotic, is top-notch throughout.

But in the end it’s Madison’s movie. And no matter what the future holds for Anora and Ivan, this actress’ love story with Hollywood has only just begun.