It’s the holiday season which means we’re inundated with a bunch of films seeking some awards buzz before the Academy Awards early next year and my Scene card has been working overtime!
I had the pleasure of seeing Poor Things twice now, but needed a second viewing to really form my feelings about the movie. This isn’t really because the movie requires repeat viewings to appreciate it, but our Friday night crowd was on the more disruptive side and so I wanted a less tainted experience with the movie before I put my thoughts together. Luckily, I was able to go again on Monday with Kelsey so without any further adieu, here’s my review for Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things!
My Thoughts
There is so much to cover with this one that I almost don’t know where to start. To get the setup out of the way though, Yorgos Lanthimos is the director of this one. Some of his previous work includes The Favourite, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and The Lobster which is my favourite of his movies. Lanthimos is definitely a unique filmmaker with a distinct vibe to his movies. They can range from quirky to flat out bizarre and, at least stylistically, this movie is more in that bizarre camp.
Emma Stone stars as Bell Baxter, a grown woman physically but not mentally, and the apparent daughter of Willem Dafoe’s Godwin Baxter. As Bella’s mental skills sharpen, she hungers for experiences and adventure and Mark Ruffalo’s Duncan Wedderburn tempts her with what she craves. The film also stars Ramy Youssef as Max McCandless who is Godwin Baxter’s student and assistant.
Before we get into more about the performances, I want to talk about the visual style of the film. It’s a period piece, but it’s a hyper stylized world that feels like the production designer was inspired by The Wizard of Oz but also took a lot of psychedelics as they built the sets. It’s a treat to look at though and some frames in particular would make for some beautiful stills to hang up on your wall as art.
Shifting quickly to costumes and makeup, I haven’t seen anything else this year that can really compete in the costume department. The outfits are extravagant but still grounded and Bella gets some particularly stunning outfits throughout the movie. On the makeup side, this is most notable with Dafoe. While still recognizable, he is covered in makeup that gives him a somewhat monstrous look that felt sort of distracting at the beginning but I quickly found myself overcoming that feeling.
This also weaves nicely into the score which fits this movie perfectly. It feels eerie and unsettling often, but when the story requires a lighter touch it delivers that too while not feeling like a completely different sound. I’m no musician so I can’t really touch on all the details that go into it, but it matches the movie’s vibe while enhancing what you’re watching on the screen throughout.
Moving on to the performances though, I want to talk about Emma Stone. This was definitely her best and most interesting performance, which is saying something considering she has also won an Oscar, but it’s absolutely the case. This has to be the most adventurous role that I’ve seen of her too. Bella is a grown woman but acts as if she’s a small child from her movement to her speech. A baby struggles to walk as it lacks the bone density and the strength to manage it, let alone learning to balance. So this aspect of the performance isn’t as simple as copying how a baby walks. How do you walk if you don’t know how, but you have all the things you need to accomplish it already? Then you factor in her speech and vocabulary as well. In lesser hands you’d be laughing at the performance, but what Stone manages to do here, you believe it entirely. Emma Stone and Lanthimos worked together for a long time in rehearsals to figure all these details out and how the performance would evolve over the course of the movie and the range of this performance is truly remarkable. This is definitely one of the best performances of the year!
However, one character manages to absolutely steal the scenes away from Stone when they’re together and that would be Mark Ruffalo’s Duncan. Holy smokes, I did not know that Ruffalo had this sort of performance in him. He’s always been good but his roles have been pretty safe by and large and in this movie Ruffalo plays a narcissistic buffoon perfectly and had me bellowing out laughs nearly every time he opened his mouth. I think that Emma Stone was one of the year’s best performances, but it wasn’t even my favourite performance in this movie, which speaks to just how good Ruffalo is here. Best Supporting Actor is probably one of the most competitive categories this year with a lot of great options, but Ruffalo deserves to be in serious contention with the likes of Robert Downey Jr, Robert De Niro, and Ryan Gosling.
As far as how all these pieces come together though, about halfway through the movie I had this feeling that I was just watching an incredibly weird version of Barbie. It wasn’t just that this movie was like Barbie though, I think this movie was able to go a bit deeper than Barbie with what it was trying to do. What enables this I think is that while Barbie is really good, it still has a board level of accessibility. Kids and adults can watch it and have a good time which is clearly why it had such great financial success. Poor Things is definitely for adults which I think allows for a deeper exploration of themes. It’s not that this inherently makes Poor Things a better movie, just that it’s a different viewing experience.
Adriana pointed out afterwards that this movie also had a lot of similarities to Frankenstein as well, which is also true. So if an adult mashup of Barbie and Frankenstein sounds appealing to you, this movie will deliver!
This movie won’t be for everyone because it is just so out there in so many ways, but if you’re able to open yourself up to the movie and experience it, you won’t regret it!
Verdict
There is just so much greatness in this movie that I have to give it two thumbs up. From the sound, sets, costumes, direction, writing, and performances, this is the kind of unique movie I wish we got to see more often.
This will definitely be competitive at the Oscars in a variety of categories and deservedly so. If it’s playing near you definitely give Poor Things a watch!
Adriana Wiszniewska