Poor Things (18)

Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael

Emma Stone gives a career best performance as an experimental subject on a journey of discovery in Yorgos Lanthimos’ bizarre and occasionally ruthless fantasy comedy.

Ever since the release of his third directorial feature Dogtooth in 2009, an extreme dissection of quiet suburbia, I have been a huge fan of Yorgos Lanthimos. The Greek filmmaker never shies away from depicting the horrific and bizarre nature of his wildly eccentric characters, and the 50-year-old has stayed true to this with his latest film, the whimsical ‘coming-of-age’ fantasy Poor Things.

When the novel of the same name was released in 1992 by Scottish author Alasdair Gray, it was never seriously considered as a piece of fiction to be adapted for the big screen. With its unique structure, mainly consisting of a series of back-and-forth letters and unreliable accounts by multiple narrators, the novel is a curious take on the Frankenstein mythology. If there was one aspiring filmmaker who could adapt such a novel, one put together almost like Frankenstein’s monster itself, it was Yorgos Lanthimos. Having read the novel, Lanthimos acquired the rights to the novel from Gray back in 2009, after the Scotsman gave the director a personal tour of his native Glasgow, the primary setting of the novel.

After side-lining the project to focus on a serious of other highly acclaimed works, including: Alps (2011), The Lobster (2015), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), Lanthimos began pre-production on ‘Poor Things’ following the critical and commercial success of his Oscar-winning The Favourite (2018). After a solid run of theatrical releases, Lanthimos has become one of the most sought after talents and unique voices in the industry and after walking away with the coveted Golden Lion at the 80th Venice Film Festival, my already high expectations for his latest project skyrocketed.

Having worked with Lanthimos on The Favourite, Emma Stone established a trustful friendship with the director and was swiftly cast as the film’s Frankensteinian protagonist, Bella Baxter. We are first introduced to a naïve and child-like Bella as she gleefully wanders around the isolated Victorian townhouse of mad scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), whom she paternally refers to as “God”. Bella is one of Godwin’s many “experiments”, others of which consisting of various animals that have had their anatomy altered in increasingly peculiar but strangely hilarious ways. Feeling responsible for the wellbeing and mental growth of his subject, Godwin is the first of many men in Bella’s life to control and mould her as he sees fit.

A new man who arrives in Bella’s life is the foppish lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), who promptly whisks her away on a lavish world tour, much to the chagrin of Godwin and his protégé Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), who is smitten for Bella. Over the course of their hedonistic odyssey, a wide-eyed Bella’s development accelerates as she is exposed to: food, art, culture, music, socialism, capitalism and above all, sex.

Much like his previous bodies of work, Lanthimos is able to tread a very precarious line between the horrifically dark and absurdist comedy, a feat no filmmaker other than the virtuoso could possibly imagine. Most of Lanthimos’ works manage to capture the juxtaposition of their lavish settings with the extreme behaviour of the characters that inhabit them. Whether it be the vast royal estate of ‘The Favourite‘ or the squeaky-clean interiors of a hospital in ‘Killers of a Sacred Deer‘, Lanthimos’ characters consistently seem out of touch with their surroundings. Whether he is co-writing scripts with fellow Greek Efthimis Filippou, or liaising with Australian screenwriter Tony McNamara, Lanthimos’ films have an uncanny ability to always deliver dead-pan humour within these settings, leaving us as the audience undecided whether to laugh or gasp in horror.

Lanthimos’ signature style has never been more exaggerated than it is in his latest project. Everything on show here is wonderfully inventive and offbeat, from the fantastical production to the whacky period costume design, we see an initially immature Bella discover the world, herself and society through a psychedelic, candy coloured lens. Lanthimos and McNamara take the many narratives from the novel and wisely choose to focus solely on Bella, allowing the incredibly talented Emma Stone to take centre stage in what is arguably the best work of her career. It is a challenging and fearless performance by the Oscar-winning actress, as we see her character progress from a straight-legged, gurgling toddler to a well-versed and articulate figure of female empowerment. It is a three pronged performance that could have easily gone very wrong, but Stone’s physicality brings a sense of wisdom and wonder to Bella’s development.

Bella’s journey is consistently shaped by the various men in her life, all of which wish to use her for their own levels of amusement. Dafoe’s performance as Bella’s creator, a disfigured take on Dr. Frankenstein, brings a surprising amount of warmth to the film, despite his paternal control over Bella in the film’s first act. Then we have the pompous and insufferable Lothario that is Duncan Wedderburn, hilariously played by an against type Mark Ruffalo. Despite being one of the most despicable characters in the film, an insecure representation of toxic masculinity, he has some of the standout lines in the film. The only man in the film to show signs of good intentions is Max, convincingly played by Ramy Youssef in his first major film appearance. Max has genuine feelings for Bella, but due to his good nature is always scarpered by the more brash and dominant males around him.

This colourful cast of characters inhabit an extraordinary world of cinematic bliss, impeccably brought to life thanks to Robbie Ryan‘s unconventional cinematography. Reuniting with Lanthimos after their previous collaboration on ‘The Favourite’, Ryan continues to adopt his almost signature fish-eye technique, serving as peep holes into the life of the child-like Bella as she traverses the monochromatic backdrop of Godwin’s home. The world steadily opens up, the black-and-white aesthetic being ditched for a vast array of pastels as Bella comes into her own, inviting the audiences to witness the amplified backdrops of Lisbon, Alexandria and Paris through the goggled-eyes of Bella herself.

My one and only reservation of the film is I found it slightly heavy handed. One of the many joys with Lanthimos and his work is the challenge that often comes with it, he is not a filmmaker who hands his ideas on a plate for the audience to gobble up, they are there to be earnt. While there are a vast number of themes on show here from feminism, socialism and sexuality, I feel they are too on show. This will no doubt make the film a lot more accessible to general audiences than his previous films, and despite my admiration for the film it left me questioning if it would have the same level of rewatchability as his more ambiguous films.

That being said there is no questioning that ‘Poor Things‘ is one of the best films of the past year, a visual marvel that further cements Lanthimos as a true master of comically dark and absurdist cinema.

Poor Things will be showing in UK Cinemas from Friday 12th January