The director of 'The Florida Project' reaffirms his knack for spotting talent β and suspending judgment β in casting Mikey Madison as an exotic dancer who thinks she's found her whale. By Peter Debruge.
Chief Film Critic. Like countless Hollywood fantasies that have come before, it tells the story of how young people from different worlds fall in love, run into immediate obstacles and deal with the consequences β except the couple in this case consists of a New York stripper and the reckless son of a Russian oligarch. How long would you give it?
It follows on the knee-high boot heels of four other films in which Baker centered the experience of sex workers β from porn stars to prostitutes β and refashions their best aspects into a compulsively entertaining, proof emotional ride. The title character Mikey Madison , who prefers to be called Ani, works at a Manhattan strip club giving lap dances to businessmen and, on what feels like the luckiest day of her life, a Russian kid called Ivan Mark Eydelshteyn , real name Vanya Zakharov.
Popular on Variety. After a few one-on-one visits to his opulent pad a waterfront mansion with maid service and private security , Ani finds herself negotiating the rate for a week of exclusive attention.
Eager but inexperienced, Ivan races through lovemaking like some kind of spastic rabbit, and after a few such disappointments, Ani offers to slow things down and instruct him a bit. Ivan flies Ani to Las Vegas, where the wedding chapels are open 24 hours. Some people go to Vegas and get a tattoo; she gets a four-carat rock and a marriage certificate. And so what if she were? Who might be the first to miss Ani if she disappeared?
