\nLanthimos’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.\n
\nThe 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.\n
\nI saw “Poor Things” at the 2023 London Film Festival and it will be released in cinemas on 12 January 2024.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28921,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28920\/revisions\/28921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}