I’m predisposed to go into a Yorgos Lanthimos film and enjoy it. The Favourite, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster, Dogtooth, these are all films that are so specific and so strange in their language and the point they are putting across, and this blend of style and the genuine urgency of something to say has always spoken to me. Poor Things was intended to be released back in September 2023, right after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. However, due to the ongoing SAG and WGA strikes, it was delayed until right around the holidays. So, there was more anticipation and more hope surrounding this film than there otherwise might have been. 

Well, imagine my surprise and delight to discover that Poor Things might be the best movie I’ve seen all year. It’s incredibly rare that I have seen a film straddle tone this wildly and this successfully. There is a lot going on here. Much of it is zany, weird, and incredibly unorthodox for a film destined to compete in many end-of-year guilds races. Poor Things is absurd, insane, ridiculous, but it’s also grounded in emotional truth and humanity and it’s hilarious, and moving and ultimately thrilling in a number of ways. 

I don’t think the setup for the plot of Poor Things constitutes a spoiler. The trailers are vague about it, however. So if you don’t want to know what’s going on with the Emma Stone character, skip the next few paragraphs, but I think it would be difficult to discuss this movie without explaining the setup. I will be as vague as possible.

Enter Lanthimos’s strange, not-quite-right steampunk-y Victorian London. We meet Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), who is behaving in some strange ways. She seems to have a childlike disposition despite being a full grown woman. She lives in a townhouse with Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) who doesn’t let her outside. He enlists the help of his student Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) in the experiment surrounding her. We learn that Bella is a Frankenstein-esque experiment created by Godwin Baxter. She was a pregnant woman who took her own life, jumped off a bridge, and was found in the river by Baxter. He decides to implant the brain from her unborn child into the brain of the full-grown woman.

And Bella is making rapid progress. She is quickly learning more about herself and is very curious about the outside world. She embarks on a global journey with cad lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), where she discovers the power of her sexuality, learns how to manipulate those around her, and essentially discovers the person who she was all along.

Emma Stone is making a very strong case for her second Oscar, and Bella Baxter is bound to be a cinematic heroine for our times. This is at its very core a story about a woman coming of age in the oddest of circumstances, a woman coming into her own power and discovering what she’s made of and how she can change the world in small and enormous ways. And Stone is given so much to play, in big and broad ways to the subtlest details, and she reminds me why she’s one of the absolute best in the game right now. This is a story that absolutely does not work if you do not believe Stone’s performance every step of the way, and she makes the journey of Bella Baxter absolutely compelling from the moment we get going.

Mark Ruffalo has not been this charming or funny in a long time, a relief to see after he has been stifled by the Marvel machine for so long. Willem Dafoe’s performance also genuinely surprises in ways I don’t want to give away. Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, Hanna Schygulla, and Christopher Abbott top off a spectacular supporting cast, and the less you know about everyone going into this, the better experience you’ll have.

For all I’ve read about Poor Things over the last few months, it’s a feat for the movie I finally get to see in late December to surprise and thrill me in ways so unexpected that I audibly gasped and cackled at several points in the film. It’s also a long film that flies by and I wish it were even longer. I kind of sat through the end credits, gobsmacked, not wanting to leave. I guess I just wanted to live in the world of this film a little longer and it’s rare I have that kind of experience at the movies these days.

I remember a critic once discussing how Frankenstein and My Fair Lady are essentially the same story, and that is very much an idea explored in Poor Things. This film is aggressively strange from the beginning, and you kind of need to know the person you’re recommending it to, because many have been put off by the sheer strangeness of this entire endeavor.

A significant part of Bella’s story is her sexual awakening, and how she uses her sexuality as a weapon against all of these men who just want something from her. And as a result, there are quite a few sex scenes here, but they never feel navel-gazey and are never meant to titillate the audience. The camera focuses on her face and the emphasis is always on how the character is experiencing everything. She never feels confined by the societal norms for women of that era, and is constantly behaving in a way that throws the notion of polite society for a loop. Her story goes to some weird places, but she is never not in control of her destiny. The point is, maybe don’t watch this one with the family.

It needs to be pointed out how specific the look of this film is. Lanthimos’ usual cinematographer Robbie Ryan shoots this, and the first 30-40-ish minutes are in black and white, and we move on to the most sumptuous, vibrant color once Bella leaves home. The production design by James Price and Shona Heath provide deeply off-kilter designs of various European cities – designs that feel familiar, but are also somehow very off, and specific to this world. And as Bella’s worldview changes, the design of her clothes do too, and the costume design by Holly Waddington feels incredibly specific at each part of the story. She’s always wearing these increasingly elaborate puff-sleeve dresses and outfits that feel specific to the Victorian setting, but again, always feel just a little strange, in the most specific and delightful ways. The musical score by Jerskin Fendrix is always effectively adding to the film’s very specific and bizarre atmosphere.

Poor Things is full of daring, challenging and tremendously exciting filmmaking. This one is shooting for the fences, and hits its mark every time. It never stops being surprising and thrilling, weird and empowering. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking, batshit and bizarre, big, broad and also emotionally grounded in the most memorable ways. The journey of Bella Baxter, where she starts the story and where she ends up, is so spectacularly realized. She’s a character you’ll remember, and one that could influence the future of cinema.

Poor Things is available to rent and purchase digitally starting on February 27th. It will be available to own on Blu-ray and DVD on March 12th (surely no coincidence, the Tuesday after the Academy Awards.)