Poor Things (2023)- BFI London Film Festival 2023

Review

221min

Genre:       Comedy, Drama, Romance, Sci-fi

Director:     Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast:         Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo…and more

Writers:     Tony McNamara and Alasdair Gray

-Synopsis-

In a surrealist Victorian Britain, a tragically deceased young woman is re-born and given a second shot at life when she’s re-animated by an eccentric mad scientist, as her childlike blooming takes an impulsive and sexual path driven by desire and curiosity when she embarks on a journey of discovery and emancipation in the company of a lecherous Lothario, in this latest odd black comedy concoction from the director of ‘The Lobster’ and ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’.

After transitioning to British costume drama and applying some of his deadpan comedic sensibilities to English history to award-winning effect in 2008’s ‘The Favourite’, godfather of the Greek “weird wave” Yorgos Lanthimos returns to Blighty and re-unites with screenwriter Tony McNamara (The Favourite, Cruella) and his new muse Emma Stone in dark surrealist mood to adapt the 1992 Alasdair Gray novel of the same name—delivering an occasionally macabre, often devilishly droll, and always engrossingly outrageous madcap adult fairy tale for the ages . . . in true Lanthimos style.

Emma Stone stars as dearly departed young Londoner ‘Bella Baxter’, given a second round at the game of life when she’s re-animated by mad physician and experimental scientist with a God complex ‘Dr. Godwin Baxter’ (Willem Dafoe), as she experiences life through the infantility of a child but the body of a grown woman, brazenly giving into her carnal impulses whilst learning the ways of the world, observed and guided by the doctor’s devoted protégée ‘Max McCandles’ (Ramy Youssef). But when she meets foppish lascivious lawyer ‘Duncan Wedderburn’ (Mark Ruffalo), who whisks her away on a foreign enterprise, she embarks on a sexual odyssey and a hedonistic voyage of discovery through the dark realities and perverse injustices of the world—which she means to change . . . in her own inimitable style.

After briefly introducing her to British period raunchiness in their previous collaboration, Lanthimos and his returning star have clearly reached a new level of mutual trust as they take the cinematic sauciness up several notches and apply layers of surrealism and carnality to the central narrative from the Alasdair Gray source novel, creating a bizarre and occasionally macabre but often riotous semi-fantastical female emancipation parable. Helping Stone to achieve full cinematic sexual liberation with a laid bare performance which is imaginative . . . but leaves little to the imagination.

The irresistible and edgy wackiness of ‘Poor Things’ unfolds in a semi-fantastical yet partly historical turn-of-the-century period setting, as Lanthimos and his costume and production teams create a vivid look and vivacious design aesthetic that sits somewhere between a Wes Anderson design, a Tim Burton Creation, a colourful British period piece, and a living diorama, plus a steampunk style element which comes with the eccentric Dr. Baxter’s physiological and mechanical machinations.

Add the odd piece of gruesome and macabre body horror, which occasionally takes the film near Cronenbergian territory, and you have a colourful multi-tonal tapestry of striking visuals which holds your attention like a vice, all brightly captured on real film stock in both vivid monochrome and rich Technicolor by Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan (Slow West, The Favourite). Combine all this with the signature Lanthimos moving camera and his dazzling mix of shots which both unsettles the audience and places it intimately in the story—from low angles and close-ups to fish eye lenses and dynamic zooms/pans—plus an unconventional mood-setting score from experimental musician Jerskin Fendrix which combines dissonant, pulsating and occasionally jarring sounds with more melodic music and ethereal chants, and it all makes for a stunning and oddly beautiful sensory experience.

Ultimately all of Lanthimos’ gloriously curious creations are begging for the right actors to bring them to life, and the Greek filmmaker assembles just the team for it, a cast of almost exclusively American stars blissfully playing Brits to charming effect. Emma Stone leads the charge with an incredibly bold and daring turn which might just define her already illustrious career, laying it all on the line like never before by experiencing a condensed lifetime through the eyes of a curiously childlike and impulsive young woman with distinctly adult urges and physicality. And with a third (and perhaps fourth) collaboration with the director currently in the works for a 2024 release, she’s proving to be his new artistic muse.

She’s meanwhile blessed with a gaggle of supporting men on top form to spar with, including versatile screen master and champion for daring filmmakers and their odd creations Willem Dafoe, who is memorably pulled into the Lanthimos orbit as a sort of Scottish Frankenstein, a brilliant but broken and scarred mad scientist turned slightly perverse personal God and father figure. Meanwhile Ramy Youssef is the film’s straight man and moral compass as the good doctor’s medical student assistant and prospective son-in-law, whilst Mark Ruffalo is the other side of that coin, proving irresistibly sleazy and uproarious whilst stealing scenes as Bella’s caddish travel companion and professor of debaucherous fast living . . . who inadvertently becomes the student.

With his latest concoction Yorgos Lanthimos truly does pop the cork on his daring penchant for pushing the envelope, yet doing so in idiosyncratic and somehow darkly endearing fashion, and ‘Poor Things’ proves provocative to say the least, packed with nudity of the both the feminine and masculine variety and no shortage of sex, including some epic coital montages. The result is a bizarre but beautiful and off the wall tale of female empowerment and emancipation that’s simultaneously from another era and another reality yet eerily prescient, and proves that far from stifling one of the more bold and distinctive visions and voices in 21^st century cinema, his recent flirtations with Hollywood and its stars have actually amplified them, and taken him to a new level.

The Bottom Line…

A gloriously bizarre, strikingly saucy and devilishly droll rebirth and female emancipation odyssey, ‘Poor Things’ is not only Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest but also his boldest and most memorable signature darkly quirky and deadpan mediation on the human condition, a marvellously madcap feast for the senses with the humour and dialogue to match, and the performances to bring it all to life with cinematic vigour.

‘Poor Things’ is out in US cinemas on the 8th of December, and on the 12th of January 2024 in the UK.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

The Favourite (2018)

Early 18th century England and the reign of an ailing Queen Anne, defined by increasingly bizarre behaviour and her relationship with influential confidante Duchess Sarah Churchill, whose distant cousin arrives to upset the balance at court and create a triangle of power—as singular director Yorgos Lanthimos applies his unmistakable comedic touch and subverts the British costume drama . . . and English history.

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz among others.

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