A review of the bizarre new movie “Poor Things”
I confess that I struggled with the last work from director Yorgos Lanthimos, the 2018 film “The Favourite”, as I found the treatment of historic British characters just too off-beat and his whole style just too dislocated. But I warmed much more to “Poor Things”. Aurally, visually and narratively, this is an unsettling film but I found it stunning: always fascinating, frequently sexy and funny, and ultimately quite profound.Lanthimos’s odd angles and curving wide-angle shots suit this bizarre tale of a Dr Frankenstein-type figure (a grisly-looking Willem Defoe) who has brought back to life a female suicide Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) by replacing her brain with that of her unborn child. Stone’s unconventional looks are perfect for this evolving role and, in a magnificent performance, she reveals all, both physically and emotionally. As two very different suitors of Bella, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef rise to the occasion.
The radically unconventional story – set in Victorian times – comes from a novel by Scottish writer Alasdair Gray published in 1992, but the treatment is pure Lanthimos, while the sound, sets and costumes all help to create a world that is overwhelmingly theatrical (it was shot in studios in Budapest). At almost two and a half hours, it is the longest work by Lanthimos but it is never less than captivating.
I saw “Poor Things” at the 2023 London Film Festival and it will be released in cinemas on 12 January 2024.