I confess that after watching Yorgos Lanthimos' previous film - 'The Favourite' - I was a bit worried. It was a period film and seemed like evidence of an unwanted (by me) cinematic maturity. I loved in that movie attention to detail and character building that was original and well integrated into the historical context. But the bizarre boldness and morbid and disturbing aesthetic of his previous films - 'Dogtooth', 'The Lobster' and 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' - were completely missing. However, 'Poor Things' dispelled all these fears. The bizarre and unsettling Yorgos Lanthimos is back. And this movie is - in my opinion - the best movie of 2023. In my ideal cinematic world, 'Poor Things' should be Best Movie of the year and Emma Stone Best Actress in a Leading Role. Of course, the Academy Awards aren't awarded in my ideal world.
Based on Alasdair Gray's novel, 'Poor Things' is a Victorian Gothic story in the tradition of mad scientist narratives created by Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. But the roles are reversed. It is the scientist and surgeon Godwin Baxter who appears to be carved and cut like Frankenstein. In one of his experiments, he creates a strangely beautiful woman with a childlike mind whom he names Bella. The child with a woman's body will learn to walk, to talk, to behave, to confront the limits of social conventions. He will discover his body with its pleasures and pains and learn to face good and evil. She calls her creator God but at some point she revolts against the limitations that he imposes on her and decides to go out into the world, together with a man who will at first try to take advantage of her naivety. Later, as Bella grows up and develops her social talents in an original way, the two will become engaged in a game of passion and hatred with destructive potential.
'Poor Things' is a kind of road movie in an imaginary world, starting from England and Europe from the Victorian period. With this film, Yorgos Lanthimos joins those creators who invent a new, cinematic world for their stories and characters, a category that also includes Tim Burton or Wes Anderson. The limits of imagination are pushed even further at Lanthimos, with fantastic animals and hybrid monsters, with nature and urban landscapes seen through the lens of a child's or teenager's fairy tale visions. 'Poor Things' was shot almost entirely in the studios, which also gives it a visual aspect reminiscent of the great American classics, but the director also combines various filming techniques, black and white with color, panoramic 'fisheye' shooting with the main character in the center. But nothing beats the expressiveness of Emma Stone's performance. It is formidable both in the physical evolution of the growing and maturing child in a woman's body, and in the close-ups that reflect the character's experiences as she learns to confront the world around her, society, good and especially evil in the people around her. Mark Ruffalo also creates a role of a complex and toxic "bad" guy, which the viewers will remember for a long time. Hard to forget and not only because of the physical deformities is also Willem Dafoe in the role of the scientist Dr. God(win) Baxter. Each of his roles in recent years has been an event. The film features, among many other good actors, two actresses whom I have known and watched with pleasure for many decades - Hanna Schygulla and Kathryn Hunter - in the small but important roles of two women who teach Bella one or two important lessons about life. 'Poor Things' is a strange and shocking fairy tale, a film with a crisp feminist and social message, a journey into a fantastic world. Welcome back, Yorgos Lanthimos!
Based on Alasdair Gray's novel, 'Poor Things' is a Victorian Gothic story in the tradition of mad scientist narratives created by Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. But the roles are reversed. It is the scientist and surgeon Godwin Baxter who appears to be carved and cut like Frankenstein. In one of his experiments, he creates a strangely beautiful woman with a childlike mind whom he names Bella. The child with a woman's body will learn to walk, to talk, to behave, to confront the limits of social conventions. He will discover his body with its pleasures and pains and learn to face good and evil. She calls her creator God but at some point she revolts against the limitations that he imposes on her and decides to go out into the world, together with a man who will at first try to take advantage of her naivety. Later, as Bella grows up and develops her social talents in an original way, the two will become engaged in a game of passion and hatred with destructive potential.
'Poor Things' is a kind of road movie in an imaginary world, starting from England and Europe from the Victorian period. With this film, Yorgos Lanthimos joins those creators who invent a new, cinematic world for their stories and characters, a category that also includes Tim Burton or Wes Anderson. The limits of imagination are pushed even further at Lanthimos, with fantastic animals and hybrid monsters, with nature and urban landscapes seen through the lens of a child's or teenager's fairy tale visions. 'Poor Things' was shot almost entirely in the studios, which also gives it a visual aspect reminiscent of the great American classics, but the director also combines various filming techniques, black and white with color, panoramic 'fisheye' shooting with the main character in the center. But nothing beats the expressiveness of Emma Stone's performance. It is formidable both in the physical evolution of the growing and maturing child in a woman's body, and in the close-ups that reflect the character's experiences as she learns to confront the world around her, society, good and especially evil in the people around her. Mark Ruffalo also creates a role of a complex and toxic "bad" guy, which the viewers will remember for a long time. Hard to forget and not only because of the physical deformities is also Willem Dafoe in the role of the scientist Dr. God(win) Baxter. Each of his roles in recent years has been an event. The film features, among many other good actors, two actresses whom I have known and watched with pleasure for many decades - Hanna Schygulla and Kathryn Hunter - in the small but important roles of two women who teach Bella one or two important lessons about life. 'Poor Things' is a strange and shocking fairy tale, a film with a crisp feminist and social message, a journey into a fantastic world. Welcome back, Yorgos Lanthimos!