Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most interesting filmmakers working today, and his new release “Poor Things” is no exception to that case.
An adaptation of the 1992 novel of the same name by Scottish author Alasdair Gray, it plays like a delightfully bizarre gender-swapped twist on “Frankenstein.” Emma Stone stars as Bella Baxter, a young pregnant woman reanimated after her suicide by Willem Dafoe’s Dr. Godwin Baxter. Despite being fed false tales of her parents and dangers in the world by the eccentric scientist she calls “God” to protect her, she longs to explore, and so she ultimately sets out to travel with Mark Ruffalo’s debonair but sleazy lawyer Duncan Wedderburn.
On a globe-trotting adventure from England through Lisbon, Athens, Alexandria and Paris, Bella discovers herself and her sexuality while learning about the world and evading the attempts of Wedderburn and other men to possess her. Darkly, laugh-out-loud funny while still having genuine thematic weight, it all builds up to a triumphantly hilarious finale.
Stone, who has become something of a muse for Lanthimos as of late, delivers a fearlessly bold performance that is one of her best yet, with the multidimensional part requiring her to convey her character’s evolution from childlike curiosities and crass vulgarities to intellect and independence after her body is implanted with her unborn child’s brain. Other actors, too, fit perfectly in the filmmaker’s detailed world — like a cartoonishly scarred, bubble-burping Dafoe, whose character becomes a caring father figure to Bella, as well as the jealously weaselly Ruffalo and more well-meaning Ramy Youssef, who plays student research assistant and Bella’s fiance Max McCandles.
While the narrative is more conventionally satisfying and with performances less intentionally stilted than many of the Greek filmmaker’s excellent-in-their-own-right indies, like his 2009 international breakthrough “Dogtooth” and A24 gems such as 2015’s “The Lobster” and 2017’s “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” it’s certainly odder than his 2018 historical comedy-drama “The Favourite,” with which it shares a screenwriter in Tony McNamara and star in Stone.
Combining the Gothic with the whimsical and fantastical, “Poor Things” is a feast for the senses, from its painterly vivid pastels to its stark black-and-white photography and occasional fisheye lens (the latter of which was also used to great effect in “The Favourite”). Animal experiments like a duck-headed goat and a French bulldog with the body of a chicken, as well as science-fiction technology with little context, establish the sort of reality the story exists in, while title cards depicting Bella in surreal scenarios signify location changes. It all feels futuristic and like a Victorian costume drama at the same time, with garb by Holly Waddington as lavish as the rest of the production. Composer Jerskin Fendrix’s unusual, eclectic instrumental palette also complements throughout, from the modulating harps early on to the emotional orchestral swells of its final scene.
A strange and unabashedly explicit story, “Poor Things” is not going to be for everyone. But considering the trajectory of Lanthimos’ filmography, which has been growing more elaborate by the work, it feels like the perfect culmination of his interesting taste in subject matter and ensemble as well as form.
“Poor Things” opens in theaters on Friday, Dec. 22.
