Director: Sean Baker
Cast includes: Mikey Madison, Yuriy Borisov
139 mins / 2024 / USA

2024 BAFTA award-winning Best Actress Mikey Madison stars in this rare comedy drama that aims to destigmatize sex workers and offer some thoughtful class commentary, as the uber rich mess around with the lives of others for a good time with no thought about the consequences for them.

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 the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled. Think Pretty Woman but with more politics and you will see why this film garnered so many Oscar and BAFTA nominations, and won the 2025 Best Picture Oscar!

This might just look like another cliche Cinderella story but it goes so much far and beyond that. The emotional depth and authenticity that this movie achieves is indeed exceptional.

Madison is everything in a film that's built around her star-making performance which confirms she only deserves more leading roles. She's so confident and refuses to back down whilst being endlessly likeable. It makes everything incredibly investing because you just want her to get the fairytale ending she's been promised, making you hold onto the slightest shred of hope even as reality sets in at every turn.

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