The actress who everyone could be talking about this awards season is Mikey Madison. She stars in Sean Baker’s Anora, a Cannes breakout that many see as an obvious Best Picture frontrunner. But the film is led by Madison, who plays a stripper and sex worker who elopes with a powerful oligarch’s son, played by Mark Eydelshteyn.
Anora continues Baker’s empathetic exploration of society’s marginalized communities, with an emphasis on the lives of sex workers, as he did with Tangerine, Red Rocket, and The Florida Project.
SYNOPSIS: Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.
The film also stars Yura Borisov, Karren Karaguilian, and Vache Tovmasyan.
Anora will be one of the key films at next week’s Middleburg Film Festival, so if you’re in the area this is your opportunity to see it a bit early. Otherwise, the film opens in theaters on October 18th.