Poor Things (2023)

	Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos	COUNTRY Ireland/United Kingdom/USA GENRE Comedy/Drama NORWEGIAN TITLE Poor Things RUNNING TIME 142 minutes
	Produced by: Ed Guiney Andrew Lowe Yorgos Lanthimos Emma Stone
	Written by (based on the novel by Alasdair Gray): Tony McNamara

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Bella Baxter / Victoria Blessington	Emma Stone
Duncan Wedderburn	Mark Ruffalo
Dr. Godwin "God" Baxter	Willem Dafoe
Max McCandles	Ramy Youssef
Alfie Blessington	Christopher Abbott	½
Madame Swiney	Kathryn Hunter
Harry Astley	Jerrod Carmichael	-
Martha von Kurtzroc	Hanna Schygulla
Felicity	Margaret Qualley	-
Mrs. Prim	Vicki Pepperdine	-

Review

Arguably Yorgos Lanthimos' most cinematic film to date, Poor Things is a well of visual and intellectual ideas, all revolving around a Frankenstein-inspired mad scientist (Willem Dafoe) and his latest creation: a young, beautiful woman (Emma Stone) whose body he rescued after an attempted suicide and then resurrects by transplanting the brain of her unborn baby into her. Lanthimos' aesthetic has a distinct steampunk style, mixed in with quite a few nods to David Cronenberg, and the result is a film which brings an at times wonderful sense of adventure in addition to plenty of morbid humour and cynical satire. The audacious story takes us on a Bildung journey with our infantile protagonist in which she discovers the world's pleasures and pitfalls through encounters with a host of roaringly colourful characters. Unfortunately, the fun storytelling and creative visuals cannot quite conceal the film's sometimes imprudent postulations and generalizations, and Poor Things occasionally gets itself entangled in repeated, age-long preconceptions about sexuality, women's lib and gender roles.