Poor Things movie review - Aussieboyreviews
IS POOR THINGS A VERY STRANGE AND BIZARRE FANTASY-COMEDY?
Strange, bizarre, weird and unusual, Poor Things is a daring film with outstanding visuals, wonderful performances and plenty of conversation-starters all around. The film is mature, odd, hilarious and sometimes even bewildering, but Stone steals the show.
Storyline
After being brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter, a young woman named Bella Baxter runs off with a lawyer on a wild adventure across the continents.
Movie Images
Movie details
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Kathryn Hunter, Christopher Abbott
Writer: Tony McNamara
Release Date (Australia): 9 December 2023
Runtime: 141 minutes/2h 21m
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Ireland, UK, USA
Language: English
CONTENT GUIDE (warning: May contain spoilers)
The film contains thematic content relating to scientific experimentation, manipulation, explicit surgical scenes and also features strong sexual themes.
The film includes bloody depictions of violence, including a scene in which a man is shot in the foot and another scene in which a character repeatedly stabs a corpse in the face.
The film contains use of the words “c**t”, “f**k”, “s**t”, “bitch” and “whore”.
The film includes a verbal drug reference to heroin and cocaine.
The film contains full frontal male and female nudity, as well as buttocks nudity.
The film contains strong sexual themes and features several sex scenes, which feature graphic nudity, thrusting detail and multiple positions. There are also depictions of a female masturbating.
mpaa rating
R (for strong and pervasive sexual content, graphic nudity, disturbing material, gore, and language)
Aussie boy's thoughts
Emma Stone is giving a daring performance, Yorgos Lanthimos is putting his strangely masterful vision on the screen and the entire crew from the production design to the supporting cast members are giving in their all. You’ve already heard everyone say Poor Things is not everyone’s cup of tea, which despite myself finding it very enjoyable and well-made, the “not-everyone’s-cup-of-tea” term is just a criminal understatement. From the weird plot to the very artsy execution, I can easily picture the average moviegoer having little appreciation for Poor Things, but most movie-buffs will see this as a very special piece of filmmaking and cinema.
After being brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter, a young woman named Bella Baxter runs off with a lawyer on a wild adventure across the continents. Kicking the discussion off with the element I see tons of people begging the Oscars to award, performances across the board truly couldn’t be improved in this movie. Emma Stone has amazingly pulled off this innocent yet crazy baby-brained woman learning about life, and she’s done it with perfection. I also found Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo to be exceptionally funny and kind of quirky in their roles.
In addition, movie-lovers will dedicate conversation to how creative and unique, yet completely bizarre the film’s cinematography and visuals are. You have your extremely lengthy sections filmed in black-and-white, but my attention to the story would be taken to admire each of the colours, especially blue, which look so unusual and almost exaggerated when they show up. The cinematography is a similar yet its completely own story; some shots appear to be looking through the peephole of a door. There’s something about the visuals that is so mystifying and baffling at the same time, to the point where it became a lot to handle for me personally.
Poor Things is a movie I can easily see myself watching again, if not many more times just to be able to appreciate every distinctive aspect and love it as much as others do. Because while I interpret it simply as both a simple and complex movie about discovery, life and humanity from the viewpoint of a young woman new to the world, the film honestly left me feeling kind of puzzled and disoriented. There were sequences where I could definitely feel the 141-minute runtime and others that kept me more entertained than I could’ve asked for. Overall, it’s wonderful movie, but it’s also puzzling, bonkers and extremely unusual.
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