Anora and All We Imagine Is Light make for satisfying summer movie going

Director Sean Baker’s enthralling Palme d’Or winner can feel like Pretty Woman with a Russian accent and a dark side.

Film-maker Sean Baker made a big splash in 2015 with the bravura Tangerine. Shot entirely on an iPhone, the story about a transgender prostitute out for revenge on her cheating boyfriend garnered several awards. Baker’s journey into urban social-realism continued with The Florida Project, which again starred novice actors, as well as Willem Dafoe. Baker’s latest, Anora, won the 2024 Palme d’Or at Cannes.

It’s a tale of sex workers and immigrants, this time an exotic dancer of Russian heritage brought up in Brooklyn and her ill-fated relationship with Vanya, the playboy son of a Russian oligarch.

Ani (Mikey Madison, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood) meets her dashing young prince at her strip club, among the writhing bare backsides and pumping music of the film’s opening scenes. Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), who throws money around like water and courts Ani in adorably hybrid English-Russian, falls hard for the feisty New Yorker and the two start hanging out.

A hasty marriage and a fat diamond ring later, Vanya’s parents are threatening to return him to Russia and his father’s flunkeys have a fight on their hands.

This Romeo and Juliet-meets-Pretty Woman-meets-Uncut Gems of a film is not only a blast to watch, but an object lesson in writing strong characters who elicit our sympathy, despite their dubious life choices and their unlikeability.

Once again, Baker has cast two stunningly talented newcomers and creates an enthralling, outrageous, utterly enjoyable story out of their misfortunes.

In her first lead role, Madison is a revelation, demonstrating how it’s not the sex and dancing that’s tiring in Ani’s line of work, but the incessant obligation to fake being cheerful and enticing. Meanwhile, Vanya bounds about like a puppy, running off his mouth and his father’s credit cards.

And just when you thought these two lovers couldn’t get any cuter, Baker evokes the Tarantino-penned True Romance and brings in the heavies. As the oafish Armenian henchmen, Karren Karagulian and Vache Tovmasyan play it hilarious and then heartfelt, particularly as a surprising connection grows between warden and prisoner.

It’s also a fascinating insight into the lives of the rich and Russian – something most of us will never get to be.