Director: Sean Baker
Starring: Mikey Madison
Running Time: 139 minutes
Synopsis: New York City stripper and private dancer Ani (Mikey Madison) meets customer Ivan, the irresponsible son of a wealthy Russian businessman. He lives at a swanky mansion and invites Ani to become his paid-for girlfriend for a week, after which they fall in love and get married in Las Vegas. Ivan's parents are scandalized, and dispatch fixer Toros and goons Igor and Garnik to clean-up the mess. Ani has to fight for her right to stay married, and demands that Ivan confirm his love.
What Works Well: Director and writer Sean Baker boldly mixes plenty of raunchy sex, endless profanity, parties, drugs, broad comedy, suspect romance, and raw human emotions into a granular story. In this darker and much edgier version of Pretty Woman, the elements meld into an often compelling search-for-a-prince crashing into cross-ocean class realities. Ani (which she prefers to her full name Anora) is a sassy and savvy woman confidently wielding sex as a means to prosperity, and Baker's other magic ingredients include caring enough for Toros, Garnik, and especially Igor to unexpectedly round them into humans worth noticing beyond the fixer/goon archetypes. And as a bonus, Baker lands an ending that manages to be simultaneously crushing and hopeful.
What Does Not Work As Well: The running time is inexcusably long, and by a good 30 minutes. The scene introducing Igor, Garnik, and Toros is stretched from slapstick/screwball comedy to just exhausting, and the subsequent search for Ivan contains more padding than content. About half the movie shifts focus away from Ani and to the Russian/Armenian trio, resulting in tonal degradation.
Key Quote:
Ani (to Jimmy, the strip club manager): When you give me health insurance, workers' comp, and a 401k, then you can tell me when I work.
All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
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