The central title character, Anora (also known affectionately as "Ani"), is brilliantly portrayed by rising American actress Mikey Madison. In Sean Baker's critically acclaimed comedy-drama film, she plays a young Uzbek-American sex worker and exotic dancer working in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, whose life takes a wild, chaotic, and dramatic turn after she impulsively marries the immature son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, leading to a frantic series of interventions by the groom's family.