Sean Baker’s “Anora” premiered with a bang, winning the prestigious Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Surprisingly it’s the first American film to do so since Terrence Malick’s sublime 2011 masterpiece “The Tree of Life”. Unfortunately “Anora” falls well short of that lofty masterpiece status. Instead it’s a draining exercise in indulgent filmmaking that puts its focus on most of the wrong things.

“Anora” sees Baker gravitating towards the same problems that plagued his previous feature, 2021’s “Red Rocket”. His films set out to be raw, gloss-free windows into overlooked American subcultures and that’s a good thing. But too often his tawdry obsessions come at the expense of much-needed attention to his characters and/or their relationships. Never has that been more true than in “Anora” – one of the loudest and longest 140 minutes you’ll endure.

“Anora” is a blaring example of what a lack of restraint can do to a movie. Baker’s inability to know when to ease off the gas and let his characters breathe becomes one of the film’s biggest problems. We’re left with surface-level treatments rather than any meaningful development. And good luck finding an emotional core amid the endless yelling, constant arguing, and (at times) brain-melting dialogue.

The film’s star Mikey Madison is the biggest victim playing Anora, a 23-year-old lap dancer at a high-end New York City strip club. Much like Emma Stone for Yorgos Lanthimos, Madison lays bare and fully commits to her male director’s vision. But despite routinely stripping down and screaming on demand, Baker never gives her the material she needs to stretch her role beyond rank exhibitionism. Yet in a weird way it fits with the aggressive amorality of Baker’s crass and cranked-up world.

Madison’s Anora, who goes by Ani, works at Club HQ making her money fulfilling the 15-minute fantasies of her diverse clientele. One evening she dances for a rich and pampered young Russian named Vanya (Mark Eidelshtein) – an easy frontrunner for the most obnoxious movie character of the year. He’s immediately attracted to Ani, showering her with C-notes and inviting her to his family’s modernistic mansion for some sex work on the side. It’s a proposition Ani happily accepts.

Ani is framed as a savvy young woman who understands the ins-and-outs of the game she plays. She uses manipulation like a scalpel, shrewdly seducing customers by catering to their desires for her own self-interests. But her supposed agency and acumen are unintentionally undermined by her relationship with Vanya. Her tough and confident persona takes a “Pretty Woman” turn after she accepts $15,000 to be his girlfriend for a week.

Following six days of rampant sex, drugs, and partying (which Baker numbingly depicts for what seems like an eternity), Ani and Vanya fly to Vegas on a whim and get married. Nothing about their sudden nuptials makes sense mostly because the pair spend too much time in a haze of debauchery to develop any believable emotional attachment.

Or maybe Ani is just in it for the money. But that makes us question everything we thought we knew about her. How could she not see through the patently flighty and profligate Vanya? We certainly can. The problem is we don’t really know because so much screentime is wasted on superfluous things that we never get a good sense of Ani’s true feelings, sensibilities, or even her motivations.

In reality the marriage is little more than a device used to turn the second act of “Anora” into a half-baked screwball romp across New York City. After word of Vanya’s exploits reaches his wealthy parents back in Russia, they send their son’s Brooklyn-based handler, Toros (Karren Karagulian) and his two bumbling goons, Igor (Yuriy Borisov) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) to get the marriage annulled. But once they arrive at the family estate Vanya splits, leaving the angry Ani to join the three inept tough guys in their citywide search for him.

As “Anora” takes its dramatic turn it only gets more narratively and tonally chaotic. The one consistent throughline is the incessant yelling, ranting and raving which is so prevalent that it feels like a running joke I must not get. Meanwhile the world Baker recreates has a striking air of accuracy due to his choice to shoot on location. It’s too bad his characters don’t possess the same authenticity. Instead they find themselves trapped within a proudly profane yet frustratingly hollow construct that gives the appearance of something raw and dazzling but is actually a repetitive and exhausting grind.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS