Winner of 4 Academy Awards,
including Best Actress
Based on the Kafka-esque 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray and reimagined by the wildly inventive Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things is the saga of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a young woman living in a Steampunk version of Victorian London. The film’s production design, makeup and hairstyling, and costumes were also winners at the Oscars. After killing herself and being crudely resurrected by scientist Dr. Godwin “God” Baxter (Willem Dafoe), she runs off with a debauched lawyer (Mark Ruffalo) on an odyssey of self-discovery and sexual liberation. Gothic, raunchy and delightfully weird, it plays as if Mary Shelley, on acid, wrote a feminist bildungsroman/sex comedy. Stone is thrilling to watch as Bella matures, though Ruffalo (nominated for Best Supporting Actor) and Dafoe sometimes steal the show.
“Poor Things is smart and bonkers in all the right ways. This is why it is, arguably, the best film of the year.” — Gary M. Kramer, Salon.com
“Through it all, Bella claims center stage; and whether she’s acting as an innocent or a sophisticate, Stone has no problem anchoring the chaos.” — Natalia Winkelman, The Boston Globe
Yorgos Lanthimos
Tony McNamara, Alasdair Gray
Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef
English, French, Portuguese
Ireland, United Kingdom, United States