Is it time to start anticipating next year's Oscar nominations? One of the frontrunners has to be Poor Things, the new surrealist drama from Yorgos Lanthimos, director of the critically heralded, Oscar-winning The Favourite.
That movie's star, the Oscar-nominated Emma Stone, reunites with Lanthimos to deliver another physically spellbinding performance. She plays Bella Baxter, a bizarre quasi-human experiment that has been brought to life by Willem Dafoe's physically scarred scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.
As Bella acclimates to the realities of the world, her mind and body start to sync up and she embarks on an epic voyage to discover herself. Along the way, she encounters a host of oddball characters including Mark Ruffalo's dapper lawyer Duncan Wedderburn.
It's all very, very Lanthimos, meaning we're expecting an emphasis on uncomfortable black comedy, off-kilter slapstick and a visual palette that, as per cinematographer Robbie Ryan's lens (he also worked on The Favourite), is best described as 'skewed'. Here's the new poster.
Few contemporary filmmakers are as singular as Lanthimos. He's capable of burrowing into that particularly spiky area where multiple emotions collide and result in a genuinely provocative viewing experience. Poor Things is based on the book of the same name by Alasdair Gray and is building much anticipation ahead of its Venice Film Festival debut.
Find out more about the movie in the following featurette. Originally scheduled for a September release, we're now getting Poor Things in the UK on January 12th, 2024.
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