Based on Alasdair Gray's novel of the same name, "Poor Things" focuses on Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a Victorian-era woman resurrected by an experimental doctor (Willem Defoe) through a macabre series of circumstances. Bella, who knows the doctor merely as "God", begins to regain her physical faculties and psychologically develop, and seeks to explore the outside world with varied outcomes.
Stone reunites with Yorgos Lanthimos here after their stellar collaboration in "The Favourite", and the result is impressive for a number of reasons. The "Frankenstein"-esque plot of the film is shot through with a mean streak of eccentric (and at times quite dark) humor that mostly hinges on Bella's developing grasp on language and social norms. In the beginning, as she is introduced to God's protege, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), Bella is infantile in demeanor and coordination, but as she "grows" so to speak, her clunky use of English creates a number of hilarious lines that Stone delivers impeccably. As she is taken under the wing of a selfish and corrupt attorney (Mark Ruffalo) and becomes his lover, the character is springboarded into a number of adventures that have a "Gulliver's Travels" sort of nature about them.
Of course none of this would work well if the screenplay were weak, but the writing and dialogue here is whipsmart and witty. As it progresses, Bella's perverse origins come further into focus, and she begins to analyze humanity and the cultural customs around her through an at-times painfully objective lens. It goes without saying that Stone carries the film on her shoulders, but Ruffalo, Defoe, and Youssef also give uniformly strong performances and lend these characters a robustness that matches that of the lively, guileless Bella.
Visually, the film is sublime: It appropriately begins in gothic black-and-white and utilizes fisheye lenses and a number of other period visual flairs before it shifts into full color, where the surreal Victorian-meets-futurism locales feel both ancient and almost Disney-like. While the thematic content here is dark in nature, "Poor Things" is probably Lathimos's most charming work to date--and I'm not sure I can really think of anything about it that I did not like, which rarely happens. 10/10.
Stone reunites with Yorgos Lanthimos here after their stellar collaboration in "The Favourite", and the result is impressive for a number of reasons. The "Frankenstein"-esque plot of the film is shot through with a mean streak of eccentric (and at times quite dark) humor that mostly hinges on Bella's developing grasp on language and social norms. In the beginning, as she is introduced to God's protege, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), Bella is infantile in demeanor and coordination, but as she "grows" so to speak, her clunky use of English creates a number of hilarious lines that Stone delivers impeccably. As she is taken under the wing of a selfish and corrupt attorney (Mark Ruffalo) and becomes his lover, the character is springboarded into a number of adventures that have a "Gulliver's Travels" sort of nature about them.
Of course none of this would work well if the screenplay were weak, but the writing and dialogue here is whipsmart and witty. As it progresses, Bella's perverse origins come further into focus, and she begins to analyze humanity and the cultural customs around her through an at-times painfully objective lens. It goes without saying that Stone carries the film on her shoulders, but Ruffalo, Defoe, and Youssef also give uniformly strong performances and lend these characters a robustness that matches that of the lively, guileless Bella.
Visually, the film is sublime: It appropriately begins in gothic black-and-white and utilizes fisheye lenses and a number of other period visual flairs before it shifts into full color, where the surreal Victorian-meets-futurism locales feel both ancient and almost Disney-like. While the thematic content here is dark in nature, "Poor Things" is probably Lathimos's most charming work to date--and I'm not sure I can really think of anything about it that I did not like, which rarely happens. 10/10.