Anora – or Ani as she prefers to be called – works in a glitzy sleazy New York nightclub as an exotic dancer.  There are cubicles where the gentlemen clients can, for a fee, enjoy the services of a private dancer, and separate rooms where for an even higher fee they can have the full monte, as it were. 

One day a client asks for a girl who speaks Russian.  This turns out to be Ivan, Vanya for short – son of a Russian oligarch who’s well-connected in the émigré subculture that’s sprung up in New York City since the fall of the Soviet Union.  Ani learnt Russian from her grandmother.  She doesn’t speak it all that well but she’ll have to do. 

21-year-old Vanya is a real party boy, and money is no object.  He takes her back to Papa’s palatial pad where they drink, smoke and snort anything and everything.  She lays it on thick with all the tricks of the trade and he’s so delighted with her he suggests they go exclusive. 

Anya is no starry-eyed ingenue.  Away from her strip club she lives in a grimy tenement that backs onto a railway line.  She asks for $15K in return for exclusivity and he pays up straight away, peeling off the notes there and then.  He treats her as his girlfriend as they gad about together to wild youthful parties and funspots. 

Then he suggests they get married.  She thinks he must be joking but he tells her it’s so he can stay in the US and not have to go back to boring Moscow and work in his father’s boring business.  What business is his father in?  He’s cagey about that and jokily mentions drugs.  But is he joking about that too?  Ani doesn’t really care.

He also says he loves her, and when he presents her with a huge diamond ring she starts to believe him.  And he’s so understanding about the money thing!  When she asks for a further $15K he pays up instantly, so she quits her job and off they fly to Las Vegas in the parental jet for a Vegas quickie that barely interrupts the partying.   

Then word gets out about the marriage, thanks to the father’s network of spies, minders and gofers.  They spring into action.  They crash the party big time.  They invade the love nest and demand that this marriage nonsense be kyboshed before the imminent arrival from Moscow of the fearsome oligarch father and his equally fearsome wife, neither of whom is happy about this mesalliance between their son and a prostitute.  To put it mildly. 

Vanya is terrified of his parents and he legs it, leaving Ani to stand her ground armed only with the big sparkler on her ring finger and a conviction that her Russian princeling will somehow return to save the day and restore his lawful wife to the status, not to mention the boundless wealth and luxury, to which she now feels entitled. 

The henchmen don’t have an easy time of it.  If they don’t sort out this marriage business quick smart there’ll be hell to pay.  They have their hands full with hellcat Ani – literally – and they have to find Vanya so they can get the two of them back to Vegas because it turns out the marriage can’t be annulled in New York.  They chase him through the night from bar to strip club to sleazy night joint – all the places frequented by the nouveau riche young emigre party crowd. 

It’s hard to know how to classify Anora.  It starts out looking like an updated, grittier version of Pretty Woman, but it’s no wish-fulfilment fairytale.  There’s a star-crossed lovers element, but it’s too grounded in sexual and moral corruption to be Romeo and Juliet. 

Is it a modern take on the notion that the course of true love never did run smooth?  Well, that would depend on your definition of ‘true’ and ‘love’. 

So it’s not a romcom, because there’s not really any ‘rom’, and it’s not strictly a comedy, although it is funny.  Actually, maybe it is a comedy.  With ugly bits and humane bits.  I like that it plays fast and loose with movie cliches about love and sex and romance, but not in an aren’t-we-being-clever-and postmodern way. 

I also like that it’s full of surprises.  The characters are by no means stereotypes.  In fact the most sympathetic character is one of the tough-guy minders who harbours a soft spot for Ani, even though she’s done nothing but bite and scream and snarl at him.   Even the scary oligarch father has a sense of humour – about some things.

It’s very entertaining, it’s not overly violent, and although it’s over two hours long it sustains interest with its closely observed and (I hope) utterly authentic depiction of the émigré Russian/Ukrainian/Armenian New York subculture. 

And best of all, the ending is not predictable. 

One of my readers says I should give a definitive judgment in my reviews.  A mark and/or a recommendation.  As for recommendation, I can only say that if this sounds like your thing then you should go and see it.  I give it 4 out of 5.