“Poor Things” (2023)
Fancy a Frankenstein Sci-Fi Comedy?
“Poor Things” is the eighth big screen cinematic offering from Greek born filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and after finally seeing two of his three most recently released films this time last year (“The Lobster” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” — please see my spoiler free reviews below), I was excited beyond measure to finally see his latest creation and boy was my excitement matched by yet another darkly absurdist, darkly comedic addition to his cinematic canon.
How about this for a cryptic, spoiler free setup:
A Frankenstein tale of unrequited love between a badly disfigured creator and his childlike creation, watched from near and far by a foppish surgeon’s assistant akin to the eager student figure experimenting with Alex Garland’s AI creation in “Ex Machina” and framed through the surrealist, picture-book lens of Wes Anderson. You have a “God” and very definitely a “Monster” (though not perhaps the character unfairly titled so), a human “experiment” with a fresh clean slate and outlook on life writing their own destiny. A changing colour palette from dirty black and white through to outlandishly colourful and all wrapped within a hilariously awkward and brutally honest tale of, in the director’s own words, “the awkwardness of human interaction” that so brilliantly pervade all of his films.
"The Lobster" - Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
"The Killing of a Sacred Deer" - Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
"The Essential Film Reviews Collection" - Vol.7
The “Monster” and indeed “God” of our Tony McNamara written and Yorgos Lanthimos directed twistedly funny tale is “Dr Godwin Baxter” (Willem Dafoe) a horribly scarred eccentric and speaker in tongues inventive surgeon who cares and nurtures his greatest creation “Bella Baxter” (Emma Stone). A child in an adult’s body, Bella is a human “experiment” under the watchful loving gaze of “Max McCandles” (Ramy Youssef) before being whisked on a picture postcard tour of Europe by “Duncan Wedderburn” (Mark Ruffalo) in the hopes of winning her hand in marriage and in place of the dastardly well spoken and head over heels in love Max McCandles. Missing the created and forever unrequited love of his life, the monster needs a new creation.
“Poor Things” is flat out bonkers, incredibly difficult to watch funny at times and horrifically shocking at others. There’s a FUBAR moment 20 minutes in and the first hour an intensely surreal ride before a second half detour into a Wes Anderson picture-book world that isn’t as strong as the opening hour and a frankly redundant ending that was sign-posted way before its arrival. It’s still amusing and brilliantly in keeping with the anarchic craziness that comes before it with a slew of honours surely to follow in the pun intended direction of Yorgos Lanthimos and the incredible individual performances from Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo. 11 nominations at the 2024 BAFTA’s saw 5 wins and Emma Stone as “Best Actress in a Leading Role” and 11 further nominations duly follow the film into the Oscar’s ceremony this coming Sunday.
Unbearably honest, no filter, awkward human interactions are explored once more in Lanthimos’ latest horror story and I can’t possibly recommend “Poor Things” highly enough.
Thanks for reading. There’s well over 300 individual articles and conservatively double that number in spoiler free film reviews contained within my archives here. Alternatively, here are my three most recently published articles in this genre: