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Sean Baker's raucous and thunderously entertaining Anora once again zeroes in on characters from the fringes of American society, just like his earlier films, Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket.

Here, the story follows Anora (Mikey Madison) – or Ani, as she likes to be called. A gutsy Brooklyn lap dancer, Ani undergoes a life-changing moment when she becomes entangled with Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the spoilt son of a Russian oligarch.

She is introduced to him at the club where she works because she can understand Russian. He's on vacation and has no problem with flaunting his wealth – or rather his father's.

He invites Ani and her friend to a lavish New Year's Eve party and later hires her for a week – for a cool $15,000 in cash, upfront. That kind of money doesn't come easily to Ani and she soon accepts but then comes the shocker: Ivan proposes marriage. At first she doubts his sincerity but before long she's whisked to Las Vegas to tie the marital knot.

This is when the trouble really starts. Ivan's parents soon get wind of their foolish son's impetuous decision and send godfather and fixer, Toros (Karren Karagulian), and two goons, Igor (Yura Borisov) and Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan), to sort the situation. Toros demands an annulment but Ani knows she's in the right.

So begins a battle of wills, as the young woman refuses to be bullied. As for Ivan, he goes walkabout, forcing everyone to go looking for this little rich boy who is far too scared of his parents to stand up to them and protect his new bride.

A Cinderella story where happily ever after is hard to come by, Anora is a film that teems with energy – which may explain why this year's Cannes Film Festival jury awarded it the top prize, the Palme d'Or.

Most potently, the film's mid-section – when Igor and Garnik try to restrain Ani in Ivan's family's luxury home – is staggering, as a protracted fight breaks out and the living room gets trashed. It's a ferocious sequence, one that's brilliantly, vividly captured by the film's Texan cinematographer Drew Daniels.

Right at the heart of Anora is a first-rate performance from Madison, who previously featured in the recent Scream films and Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood. Truly embodying Ani's fearlessness, Madison crafts what is surely a career-breakout turn, finding true pathos in the film's third act, when Ani comes face-to-face with Ivan's hatchet-faced mother (Darya Ekamasova).

Opposite her, Eydelshteyn is terrific as Ivan, with his little-boy-lost routine perfectly in tune.

Examining the rich and powerful, Baker pulls off a high-wire act with a narrative that yanks its audience along for a wild ride. Anora is blessed with an intensity rare in modern cinema, anointing Baker as one of America's great chroniclers of the have-nots of US society.

Spirited and special, this is one unforgettably warped fairytale.   James Mottram

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