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"Anora" is a cool breeze of a movie that billows into a whirl of heart and soul and crazy foul-mouthed action. It's a classic screwball adventure set amid a group of bumbling lowlifes and the chattery strippers, shifty priests, teed-off Russian oligarchs and uncooperative candy store owners who vex them at every turn. There's also a zonked crime-family heir who could pass for Timothee Chalamet if he ever sobered up. And, most unforgettably, there's Mikey Madison, giving a terrific, starburst performance as the titular Anora.

Madison has heretofore been most noted for her TV years on "Better Things," and for the 2022 "Scream" sequel and Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood," in both of which she was memorably set afire. "Anora" brings her bubbling-under career to a full boil. She seizes the character of a Brooklyn sex worker called Ani (a diminutive form of her given name) and never for a moment lets go. (Her outer-borough whine is flawless.)

Ani seems to have no reservations about the strip club where she's employed: She does the pole work, hustles the customers for look-don't-touch lap dances, and occasionally offers home delivery as well. One night the club manager requests some special assistance -- there's a customer out front, a foreigner, who's throwing money around like confetti, and he's requested a Russian-speaking companion. Ani has a passing familiarity with the language, having grown up in the Russian-Jewish enclave of Brighton Beach and learned it from her grandmother. Her delivery isn't perfect ("I tend to roll my r's"), but she'll give it a shot.

The needy customer turns out to be a fellow 20-something named Ivan (rising Russian star Mark Eydelshteyn). Ani is quickly attracted by his sweet, gangly charm, and of course by the fat wads of hundred-dollar bills with which he semaphores his desires; she's also impressed, a bit later, by the ultra-luxe mansion in which he lives, looking out over the East River. (It turns out to belong to his parents, whoever and wherever they are -- a situation that can probably be given further thought later.) After some preliminary snoggling, Ivan pops the question -- well, a question. Will Ani agree to be his official girlfriend for one week? Ani says yes -- for a price. For $15,000, to be exact. Why not, says Ivan with a bleary grin -- deal done.

The movie's writer-director-editor, Sean Baker, already has a fond and growing audience for his one-of-a-kind films about trans hookers ("Tangerine"), retired male porn stars ("Red Rocket") and semi-abandoned children growing up in the shadow of Disney World ("The Florida Project"). He's an original and "Anora" is his most ambitious (and maybe best) movie. (It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last spring.)

Baker pulls us right into the roiling middle of Ani's dream come true when Ivan bundles her and some friends into a private jet for a sparklingly shot excursion to Las Vegas. There, the dream begins growing a little darker after the love-drunk couple suddenly decides to get married at the city's famous nuptial mecca, the Little White Wedding Chapel. This ceremony leaks out onto the internet in no time, and soon rumblings are heard from Ivan's wealthy parents back in Russia. These are not nice people, nor is the goon squad they send in to undo their son's union with a -- so they've heard -- "prostitute."

But while the goons may puff themselves up as tough guys, they're no match for Ani, who is of course fighting for her life -- or the life she's now determined to keep living. Head goon Toros (Karren Karagulian) can do nothing with her even after she's been tied up, and she wreaks serious damage on another heavy with a foot to his face. But she slowly becomes aware of the gentle reticence being shown by another of her captors, a thug named Igor (Yura Borisov), whose actual thuggishness is questionable. By this point, the callow Ivan has disappeared -- well, run away -- and soon Ani is being dragged off to Coney Island in the icy cold to track him down. The madcap comedy continues, and the offbeat action as well. But shadows of sorrow and tenderness start creeping in, too, and Madison negotiates these shifting tones with precise emotional adjustments -- there is no time in which she's not the most magnetic presence on the screen. Especially at the end, which alone is worth the price of admission.

"Anora" lights up the waning movie year with a burst of feeling and excitement. The film has a message, of sorts. It's about the occasional insufficiency of dreams -- especially the ones that come true.

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To find out more about Kurt Loder and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

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