tony mcnamara

I’m told that Yorgos Lanthimos’s films (Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Favourite) are an “acquired taste,” meaning that – at first viewing – they’re unpleasant but after being experienced repeatedly, they’re, perhaps, likeable and can be appreciated. Unfortunately, I have not found that to be true, particularly as it applies to his newest sci-fi dramedy Poor Things, a strange, surreal satire that won the Golden Lion in Venice and features Emma Stone’s graphic full-frontal nudity.. Adapting Scottish author/artist Alasdair Gray’s 1992 dementedly comic novel, screenwriter Tony McNamara focuses the late-Victorian-era story on the bizarre evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a suicidal pregnant woman reanimated by reclusive, facially-scarred mad-scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who transplants into her cranial cavity the brain of the baby in her womb.

Poor Things satirizes Victorian England through naïve Bella Baxter. Some directors enjoy pushing their films’ style and content beyond conventional formulas. That group includes Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos whose work includes The Lobster, The Favourite, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. With his newest, Poor Things, Lanthimos has exceeded even his previous outlandish choices as Bella Baxter pursues a life of unregulated, hedonistic indulgence.

Poor Things, a screenplay from the pen of Tony McNamara (Cruella, The Favourite), from a novel by Alasdair Gray, gets the Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) treatment as he directs Emma Stone like you’ve never seen her before in this sci fi black comedy reanimated romance that can only be described as extraordinarily weird. One could look at Poor Things as a story of feminism. A depressed and kept woman breaks away to successfully take control of her life, but is her empowerment all done through a male perspective? This makes Poor Things, as odd as it is, the perfect discussion film.

Poor Things, the latest film from provocative director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite), is full of plenty of idiosyncrasies—par for the course from the Oscar nominee who crafted a romance (The Lobster) in a society where single people become animals should they fail to find a mate. Here, the scientist belches bubbles that float above the dining table, his house rife with animals spliced from different species, such as a duck with dog’s feet. The shots vary in composition and style, moving from scenes in black and white to those with a fish-eye lens and in hyper-saturated colors.