I never write about films I just watched. Usually, I avoid writing about movies I have only seen once. Anora is the only exception I plan to make for this publication. Sean Baker’s film is a cinematic event that occurs maybe twice a decade. The biggest mistake you will make this year will be missing it.

Ani works at a strip club in New York. Her full name is Anora, but she doesn’t like it. One day, the son of a Russian oligarch, Ivan, stumbles into the club and asks for a dancer who speaks Russian. Ani does. Thus begins a whirlwind romance that results in a Vegas marriage within a week. When Ivan’s family catches wind, they send Armenian enforcers to break the marriage.

Anora’s synopsis sounds like a rom-com; that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Ani isn’t a princess: her voice is drenched in the Jersey swamp and she swears and smokes like she needs it to live. Ivan, who will soon be forced to work for his father’s company, is about as mature as an 8th grader and parties like he’s at Coachella during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both feel like the people one would see on the subway, not the big screen.

There are no crocodile tear monologues or Billy Joel needle drops: there are no fateful coincidences: no one sprints through the rain. Instead, Anora’s master filmmaker Sean Baker shows more guts than there is in all of Hollywood. Baker chooses to pry the surface off the Cinderella rom-com, revealing the crippling imbalances of class. Anora transcribes the middle-class tragedy Hollywood never had the chutzpah to tell.

That isn’t to say Anora is a subversive ice fest a la Michael Haneke; Anora is easily the year’s funniest movie. One of Baker’s strongest qualities as a filmmaker is his balance of humor and gut-punch tragedy. Seeing Anora in a crowded theater reminded me of when I saw Barbie with my mother, until the unforgettable ending held the whole room in a stupor.

On a filmmaking level, Anora is perfectly constructed.

Drew Daniels’ naturalistic 35mm camerawork is impeccable. His camera tracks the blistering highs and lows of the script with such rich utilitarian expression that the viewer feels like an active participant. One shot in particular, of Ani staring out a window into a snowstorm, is the most quietly devastating shot I’ve seen in years.

Baker’s writing is so lifelike and the entire cast, especially Mikey Madison, playing the title character in this year’s best performance, acts so well that it is hard to believe that, upon exiting the theater, the characters are not real people.

Baker, one of the greatest editors in the medium, performs the impossible feat of improving upon the editing of 2021’s Red Rocket. Anora’s pacing is straight-jacket tight and Baker’s use of jumpcuts is some of the best I have ever seen.

Anora is still in theaters at AMC or Alamo Drafthouse.