Yes, Anora is as good as everyone says it is

Sean Baker’s Anora won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is hotly tipped to win big at the Oscars and I know you won’t believe it’s as good as everyone is saying it is until you hear it from me so here you are: yes, it’s as good as everyone is saying it is.

All the cast are stellar but Madison is mesmerising and carries the whole thing

It stars Mikey Madison – who is a total knockout – as a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. But this is not Pretty Woman. This film takes Pretty Woman and smashes that fantasy over its knee, but with heart and soul and in a way that is as compelling as it is surprising. It came out a while ago but is still in cinemas so do yourselves a favour and get on it. It beats Gladiator II handsus downus.

Madison plays Ani, who lives in Brighton Beach, New York, where she works in a strip club. She pole dances and lap dances and is an escort on the side. She has a way of parting men from their money that is so expert and cheerful they barely know it’s happening. One evening she encounters Ivan (played by a terrifically frenetic Mark Eidelstein, who is known as the Russian Timothée Chalamet). They hit it off, and he invites her to his place, which turns out to be a huge, glass-fronted mansion overlooking the water with uniformed maids and a basement full of supercars. Her face! That smile! It’s up there with Julia Roberts’s smile. In addition, she can twerk.