I became an instant fan of indy director Sean Baker in 2015 with his transgender hooker romp Tangerine. He followed this up in 2017 with the even better The Florida Project, a punchy look at childhood homelessness, and in 2021 with Red Rocket, a hilarious character study of a motormouth loser who’s convinced he’s a winner.

Baker is an open-hearted and inventive social provocateur who is known as one who can do a lot with a little. He shoots his you-are-there films on iPhones! His work examines, with respect and unruly humor, people on the fringes of society. This, his latest and best, has already won the Palme d’Or, the top prize in Cannes, and has garnered four Oscar noms. It’s a subversively romantic, amusingly warped sex farce about a streetwise and brassy upscale Manhattan club worker who happens to speak Russian. She isn’t averse to a little wink-wink off-campus side action but refuses to perceive of herself as a prostitute.

Mikey Madison’s delightful breakout performance in the title role cannot be overpraised. Anora is tough as nails, enjoys her life, and takes precisely zero shit from anyone. Baker wrote the role especially for Madison, and she’s believable every second. It’s quite the performance, both hilarious and darkly comic, and Baker gets constant laughs without exploiting his star character.

The story gets into gear when at the club she meets and falls for what she sees as her Prince Charming in Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the colossally empty-headed, free-spending son of a Russian oligarch. On a whirlwind trip to Vegas, they impulsively get married. Obscenely rich parents in Moscow react with a strong “nyet,” and after Anora dispatches the two goons they send (Vanya has fled), mom and dad ominously head for New York.

I’ll not tell you more. Absolutely not to be missed. (139 min)