She’s a lap dancer-slash-escort working the high-class clubs of New York City while sharing a rattletrap Brooklyn apartment next to train tracks with a co-worker. He’s the young scion of a wealthy Russian oligarch family, living his best life by smoking as much weed, playing as much Xbox, and having as much sex as his limitless allowance can procure. The meet-cute between a sex worker and a wealthy client has been rendered countless times on screen, but rarely with the insight and humor that director Sean Baker and his perfectly cast leads bring to Anora.

After he hires her for a dance, and then for a night, the wiry, distracted Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) is thoroughly besotted, and who can blame him? Anora (Mikey Madison), who prefers “Ani,” is really good at her job, as many uninhibited scenes in the film’s first half demonstrate. She’s impressed by the sleekly appointed mansion where Ivan lives, but she also likes the goofy kid, enough that when he pops the question during a trip to Las Vegas, she says yes.

Alas, the course of true love never did run smooth. When a local Orthodox priest named Toros (Karren Karaguilan), who serves as Ivan’s monitor for the folks back in Russia, finds out what the rapscallion has done, he informs mommy and daddy, who are not pleased. Accompanied by a pair of apparently garden-variety thugs, he arrives at Ivan’s place to insist on an annulment. Ivan, showing his true colors, simply bolts, leaving Ani in the hands of these gangsters, which is where things really get interesting. She proves to be more than a match for them, resulting in an alternately comic and harrowing series of escapades that result in, among other things, the destruction of a lot of expensive but cheap-looking furniture.

Baker’s gift has always been to imbue otherwise rote characters, figures (often sex workers) on the margins of mainstream society. The protagonists of 2012’s Starlet and 2021’s Red Rocket work (or worked) in the adult film industry, 2015’s Tangerine follows the quest of a trans prostitute, and 2017’s The Florida Project includes a stripper who’s fired for refusing to have sex with customers. Those films showcase characters striving to transcend class boundaries, but never really getting close to doing so. Ani, on the other hand, actually gets a glimpse of what life for the idle rich is like, only to bump on a glass ceiling of sorts.

Madison, best known until now for playing Pamela Adlon’s daughter on Better Things and for being one of the Manson girls in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, delivers a reputation-making performance. And Eydelshteyn, a rising Russian star in his English-language debut, gives Ivan a wounded, juvenile vulnerability that he probably doesn’t deserve.

I don’t want to give away the ending of Anora, but you could be forgiven for seeing it as a cautionary tale about what happens when a working-class American becomes irrationally enamored of a wealthy hedonist who has murky ties to Russia and the “good life” he ostensibly represents, only to discover that he really couldn’t give a shit. Read into that what you will.

ALSO REVIEWED

Small Things Like These: Cillian Murphy follows up his Oppenheimer Oscar win with a much more modest project. In 1985 small-town Ireland, coal hauler Bill Furlong (Murphy) goes about his business with the workaday attitude you’d expect from a coal hauler. He’s a stolid, quiet fellow, but one of his customers is the local Catholic convent, presided over by the imperious Sister Mary (Emily Watson), where his own five daughters are schooled. And he can’t help but notice the unsettling vibe, and the way “troubled” young women arrive at the place, rarely to be seen outside its walls again. It’s one of the many so-called Magdalene laundries, in which women deemed impure were housed, employed as unpaid labor, and subjected to harsh, sometimes fatal conditions for over 200 years. Tim Mielants’s film, based on a novel by Claire Keegan, isn’t so much about exposing these crimes against humanity (Peter Mullan’s 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters does a fine job of that) as it is about the silence and willful ignorance of the surrounding community. After Bill is accosted by an inmate begging to be smuggled out during one of his deliveries, he’s faced with a conflict between his personal morality and his desire to avoid being ostracized by his neighbors. (various locations)

Memoir of a Snail: With his 2009 feature Mary & Max, Australian filmmaker Adam Elliot demonstrated that he could employ stop-motion animation in service to emotionally resonant storytelling that incorporates mental health issues. In it, an Australian young girl has a pen pal relationship with a middle-aged New Yorker in the 1970s who has Asperger’s syndrome. Now, with his second feature, he provides another enlightening, honest portrayal of neurodivergence centered on Grace Pudel (voiced by Sarah Snook), an eccentric woman who was separated as a child from her beloved twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) following the death of their father. Grace is fostered by a well-meaning but inept swinger couple (it’s the ’70s) in Melbourne, while Gareth is sent to a family of Bible-thumping fundamentalists across the continent in Perth. She develops an obsession that prompts her to hoard snails and snail-related items, the better to create her own shell against her loneliness and despair. She also develops a friendship with an old woman named Pinky (Jacki Weaver), who becomes the closest thing to a maternal figure she’s known. The detail and craft of the handmade clay animation is impeccable and using this medium to explore genuine and painful human experiences is a masterstroke. Never preachy, sometimes quite funny, and ultimately immensely moving, this might be the best animated feature of the year. (Cinemagic, Kiggins Theatre, Regal Fox Tower, and other locations)

Meanwhile on Earth: The French filmmaker Jérémy Clapin, who earned an Oscar nomination for his 2019 animated feature I Lost My Body, makes his live-action feature debut with this minimalist sci-fi fable centered on the sister (Megan Northam) of an astronaut who has been lost on a mission to outer space. Wracked by grief, she vandalizes the statute commemorating his sacrifice, and shortly thereafter starts to receive telepathic messages, enabled by a weird earbud, from extraterrestrial presences offering her his return—for a price. It’s a fascinating setup that doesn’t quite go far enough in exploring its visceral appeal, but still manages moments of visual and emotional potency. (Regal Fox Tower, Vancouver Plaza, opens 11/15 at Living Room Theaters)

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point: With a title that could have been ripped from a Hallmark Channel holiday spectacular, this effort from director Tyler Taormina (Ham on Rye) seems to want to subvert the tropes surrounding a typical familial holiday gathering plot. Unfortunately, he manages to replicate to a painfully accurate degree the feeling of being stuck at an overpopulated, stressful gathering without necessarily providing any specific take on that experience. Notably, the cast includes the offspring of both Martin Scorsese (Francesca) and Steven Spielberg (Sawyer), as well as gratuitous cameos from Michael Cera and Gregg Turkington. (Regal Fox Tower and other locations)

ALSO OPENING

Heretic: The latest elevated horror from the A24 factory puts Hugh Grant to creepy use as a homeowner who invites two door-to-door Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) inside for a potentially deadly game of cat-and-mouse. (various locations)

Blitz: Writer-director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) turns his eye toward the London Blitz in this drama centered on a single mother (Saoirse Ronan) and her 8-year-old son (Elliott Heffernan), who are separated during the bombings. (Regal Fox Tower, Salem Cinema)

Elevation: After an alien invasion has destroyed civilization, hardy survivors hang on in the Rocky Mountains at altitudes greater than 8,000 feet—for some reasons, the Bug Eyed Monsters won’t venture that high. But when a father (Anthony Mackie) needs to obtain medical equipment to keep his young son alive, he’s forced to descend into the danger zone. (various locations)

Weekend in Taipei: A DEA agent (Luke Wilson) and a Taiwanese smuggler (Sung Kang), who happen to be ex-lovers, are reunited for an action-packed, chase-filled weekend in Taipei. Co-written by Luc Besson. (various locations)

ALSO THIS WEEK

Black Friday: A pair of short films examine the concept of “home” from the perspective of Black Portlanders. One is the second episode in director Devin Boss’s ongoing series Where We Goin’, the other a message from the former president of the Portland chapter of the NAACP. (Friday 11/8, Hollywood Theatre)

Good Savage: A hapless American couple move to a remote village in Mexico in search of artistic and professional inspiration, only to find themselves caught up in shenanigans beyond their wildest dreams. Presented by the Portland Latin American Film Festival, with director Santiago Mohar and star Naian Gonzalez Norvind in attendance. (Wednesday 11/13, Hollywood Theatre)

No Place to Grow Old: This documentary examines the crisis of senior homelessness, mixing personal stories of hardship with analysis of the structural flaws that enable this ongoing problem. (Monday 11/11, Cinema 21; Tuesday 11/12, Salem Cinema)

The Speakeasy Show: The latest celluloid concoction from 16mm gurus Astral Projections features material from the Roaring ’20s—the 1920s, that is. These ’20s aren’t turning out to be quite as roaring. (Monday 11/11, Hollywood Theatre)

FRIDAY

• Caged! [1950] (Academy, through Thursday)
• Green Room [2016] (Academy, through Thursday)
• Stand By Me [1986] (Academy, through Thursday 11/14)
• The Witches [1990] (Clinton St.)

SATURDAY

• Hour of the Wolf [1968] (Hollywood Theatre)
• Sans Soleil [1983] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Song of the Sea [2014] (Hollywood Theatre, also Sunday)
• Sullivan’s Travels [1941] (Cinema 21)
• Tokyo Cowboy [2023] (Clinton St.)

SUNDAY

• Caligula: The Ultimate Cut [1980/2023] (Tomorrow Theater)

MONDAY

• Sid & Nancy [1986] (Hollywood Theatre)
• The Wrong Man [1956] (Kiggins Theatre)

TUESDAY

• Bastard Swordsman [1983] (Hollywood Theatre)

WEDNESDAY

• The Lighthouse in IMAX (Bridgeport Village, Lloyd Cinemas)
• Prague Nights [1969] (Clinton St.)

THURSDAY

• Ghost World [2001] (Hollywood Theatre)