Anora: The movie of the year finally arrives

Since winning the coveted Palme d'Or, Anora – which follows the turbulent adventures of a young sex worker – has spent the past six months taking the movie world by storm.

Anora, directed by Sean Baker, stars Mikey Madison (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Scream) as the titular character, an exotic dancer from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

As the only Russian speaker at the Manhattan strip club she works at, Anora is assigned to entertain Vanya, the rich son of a Russian oligarch. When the pair spontaneously marry, Anora’s already unstable life begins to spiral.

Baker says he's been wanting to tell a New York story about the Russian-American community on Coney Island ever since the completion of his 2008 film Prince of Broadway.

So what took so long? "Well, we just couldn't figure out our plot," Baker tells RNZ producer and film critic Sam Hollis.

"It took about 15 years to figure it out. I had covered sex work in my last four films, and so I was already very familiar with that world and decided to apply that to this idea of shooting in Brighton Beach."

Since the first film where he tackled the subject of sex workers, Starlet, Baker says he has done his own research and befriended sex workers to hear their stories and better understand their world.

"And I realised there's a million stories to be told in that world and I was just telling one of them at the moment, and it's a constant source of inspiration, being that sex work is just an umbrella term and there's many different aspects of it.

"I also think my films are sort of reactions to what I'm not seeing enough of in US film and TV, and what I mean by that is like the representation of sex work up to now.

"Yes, of course, there have been empathetic approaches to sex work over the years but few and far between and I personally feel there's an unfair stigma applied to this livelihood and my hope is that through these movies - in which I'm giving you three-dimensional fully fleshed out characters - that audiences can be empathetic with our protagonists and root for them and therefore help chip away at the stigma that's applied to it."

Canadian writer Andrea Werhun, whose memoir covered her 20s as an escort and exotic dancer, was a consultant on the film too.

"That really spoke to my character who is also in her 20s and those sort of two roles, and [Werhun] spent time looking, you know, she read my script, she gave us feedback, she told us what was accurate, what wasn't and then spent time with Mikey, doing one-on-one consulting sessions," Baker says.

"It really informed [Mikey Madian's] performance because she understood her character."

Telling universal themes that we can all relate and connect to through a personal story lens is important, he says. But he believes Hollywood has been losing authentic representations of reality, whether it's about anti-heroes, sad endings, covering sensitive topics or adult dramas.

"These days we're almost overprotective of audiences' sensitivities and feelings, which all should be obviously, but I think we've found ourselves in a place where we have self-censored in many ways," Baker says.

"You can look at my film and say there's a lot of political incorrectness but it doesn't come from a place of - it's not mean-spirited... Human beings are complex, sometimes they say things you don't want to hear, sometimes they do things that you don't want to hear. Characters don't have to be flawless."

The Palme d’Or is considered among the most prestigious prizes in film. It goes to the top film presented in-competition at the Cannes Film Festival, as selected by a jury of artists and industry professionals (led by this year’s jury president Greta Gerwig).

Anora joins an elite list of American productions to win over the decades, which include Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, and Pulp Fiction.

Anora will arrive in New Zealand cinemas on Boxing Day.