POOR THINGS (18)
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Runtime:2hr 21min
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Suzy Bemba, Jerrod Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, Vicki Pepperdine, Margaret Qualley, Hanna Schygulla
Synopsis: Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
URL: https://youtu.be/RlbR5N6veqw?si=ErtGJG2dSE7lgYUp
From visionary auteur filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos with a screenplay by Tony McNamara comes the incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone -who was also a producer), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter {Willem
Dafoe}. Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
Poor Things is a science fantasy black comedy film based on the 1992 novel by Scottish polymath, artist and writer by Alasdair Gray which won the Whitbread Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize in the same year.
The film already has picked up the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival 2023 and two 2024 Golden Globes including the Award for Best Actress for Emma Stone as well as wide critical acclaim and hopes for this year’s BAFTAs and Oscars.
With a website consensus on Rotten Tomatoes of: “Wildly imaginative and exhilaratingly over the top, Poor Things is a bizarre, brilliant tour de force for director Yorgos Lanthimos and star Emma Stone.”
Absurdist Maestro, Yorgos Lanthimos { Dogtooth (2009),The Lobster, (2015) (2017),The Favourite (2018)}is reported to have been ‘ blown away’ by the book which he first read in 2009. He is said to have completely fallen in love with Bella Baxter – and it was obvious to him that somehow he had to bring her to life.
No world Yorgos Lanthimos has created before quite compares to the retro-futurism of his steampunky Victorian land of Poor Things – with big colour, big characters, every frame bringing excitement and incredible images and Emma Stone giving a career-best performance in this fantastical tale of a woman who takes her own life and is revived by a Victorian surgeon who replaces her brain with that of her unborn child.
Exquisitely shot by Robbie Ryan using various techniques on a set in Hungary, the book’s original Glasgow locations replaced with futuristic versions of Paris, Lisbon, Alexandria and London. Appropriately opening in Gothic black-and-white and uses fisheye lenses and various visual flairs before sublime full colour.
Production designers, James Price and Shona Heath and the musical score of Jerskin Fendrix underline the sensual adventures of Bella Baxter – a child woman whose burgeoning sexual awareness and eventual liberation provides much odd, unsettling and satirical humour.
With a perfectly cast ensemble, Willem Dafoe is perfect as the Frankenstein figure, Dr Godwin Baxter that Bella calls ‘God’. He and his housekeeper Mrs Prim (a glorious Vicky Pepperdine) look after Bella and he enlists his research assistant Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) to tutor her. Max falls deeply in love with Bella and wants to propose to her and it is then that the dastardly solicitor, Duncan Wedderburn ( a brilliantly caddish turn from Mark Ruffalo) enters the story and provides the springboard for Bella’s dizzying series of adventures.
The film has been subject to scrutiny in social media and print in Alasdair Gray’s native Scotland due to its seeming disregard for the source material and its Scottish roots.
But Alasdair Gray’s son Andrew, who looks after the Gray estate, disagrees
at a special screening at the Glasgow Film Theatre last year said that Lanthimos travelled to Glasgow in 2011 to meet his father and was taken on a tour of the places mentioned in the book. A year later, Lanthimos acquired the film rights.
Andrew Gray believes the production and its entire cast and crew treated the book with respect.
Poor Things is in turn hilarious, surreal and philosophically reflects its Victorian narrative and Alasdair Gray’s themes of equality and liberation
Images: Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Glasgow Film Theatre – 15-10-2023 R.Allen
