“Poor Things” (2023) Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Fancy a brief take on last night’s multi Oscar winner?
With 4 wins from 11 nominations, “Poor Things” was only pipped to last night’s Oscar headlines by Christopher Nolan’s phenomenal and highly recommended “Oppenheimer”, a subject of a past and indeed future article here soon. I won’t steal my own thunder by reiterating how ridiculously obsessed I am with the films of Christopher Nolan and so sticking to the script of this article alone, I can’t possibly recommend the latest, and now Oscar winning offering from Greek born filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos highly enough. As you will note from my original spoiler free article linked immediately at the end of this introductory paragraph, I describe his latest film as a “Frankenstein Sci-Fi Comedy” and as with every film I’ve watched from his canon of cinematic work (The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite), the comedy is dry, the language direct and grating, the horror often unpalatable and disconcerting and four unique stories brilliantly, brilliantly told.
"Poor Things" (2023) Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
During last evening’s Hollywood shindig for the rich, vain and vacuous, “Poor Things” triumphed in the categories of:
Best Costume Design — Holly Waddington
Best Makeup and Hairstyling — Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston
Best Production Design — James Price, Shona Heath and Zsuzsa Mihalek
and one of the evening’s most prestigious awards was garnered by Emma Stone as Best Actress for her portrayal of a Frankenstein doctor’s human experiment, a child in a woman’s body, “Bella Baxter”. Stone’s performance is indeed a remarkable one but a performance I’d argue overshadowed by both Sandra Hüller in “Anatomy of a Fall” and particularly Lily Gladstone in “Killers of the Flower Moon”. Such things are a required or acquired taste and always open to interpretation and subjectivity and I’m pleased my opinion, though I ADORE Emma Stone’s portrayal, doesn’t always chime with those vaunted “Oscar Voters”, whomever they may be!
Here follows a brief snippet from my spoiler free review of “Poor Things” from the 3 minute read and fuller review linked above before I hopefully entice you to delve into the remarkable films of Yorgos Lanthimos, “Oppenheimer” and the films of Christopher Nolan and perhaps you’ll also be intrigued enough to dive into any number of the 7 volumes of “Essential Film Reviews Collection” I have available on Amazon. Each and every volume is free to read if you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” package and each and every film is also read aloud to camera on both my Youtube and Rumble video channels also linked below.
Thanks for reading.
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 “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.
"The Lobster" (2015) Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
"The Killing of a Sacred Deer" (2017) Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
"The Favourite" (2018) Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
"Anatomy of a Fall" (2023) Directed by Justine Triet
"Oppenheimer" (2023) Directed by Christopher Nolan
"Christopher Nolan and his entire cinematic catalogue"
"The Blackford Book Club" - Youtube Channel
"The Blackford Book Club" - Rumble Channel
"The Essential Film Reviews Collection" Vol.7
