I feel a similar way about Yorgos Lanthimos's movies as I do about Peter Greenaway's and Andrzej Zulawski's. I am hugely appreciative that pictures so bold and original exist, but I don't usually enjoy them all that much.
"Poor Things" is no exception. It's a typically crazy idea from Lanthimos, though in a way it might be the most orthodox flick he's made since "Dogtooth". It makes sense as science fiction, like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein did.
In the movie, Emma Stone has what must be an amazing role for an actor to take on. It's no surprise she's been nominated for an Oscar. She plays a character who had died when she was with child, and the child's brain was surgically implanted into her skull, making her a baby with an adult's body. As the movie goes on her brain develops, and she starts learning how to talk better, and how to act, though she kind of remains a Kaspar Hauser type figure.
The movie's plot has a very obvious feminist parable underpinning it. A young woman, a ward or even a prisoner to the men around her, discovers sexual pleasure and goes on an odyssey of self-discovery, even working at a brothel by choice because she is thumbing her nose at (patriarchal) Victorian society.
I'm kind of sick of these parables. Stone is great in her role, and so is Dafoe, and the movie mostly works because of them. But I don't want to be preached at or told what to think.
Christopher Abbott (from "Girls") makes a very belated appearance in the last twenty minutes. It feels like his character was added for necessity, to really drive the point home that this movie is a feminist parable. Although he is really just a plot device, Abbott is impressive in the role. It is interesting to reflect that he is almost unrecognisable in his role, and yet Willem Dafoe is not, and Dafoe is the one acting from underneath pounds of make-up.
"Poor Things" just isn't as thought-provoking, shocking, or contrarian as it should be. Its parable is surprisingly heavy handed and obvious, despite the movie being so unwound. I still appreciate that it exists, though.
"Poor Things" is no exception. It's a typically crazy idea from Lanthimos, though in a way it might be the most orthodox flick he's made since "Dogtooth". It makes sense as science fiction, like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein did.
In the movie, Emma Stone has what must be an amazing role for an actor to take on. It's no surprise she's been nominated for an Oscar. She plays a character who had died when she was with child, and the child's brain was surgically implanted into her skull, making her a baby with an adult's body. As the movie goes on her brain develops, and she starts learning how to talk better, and how to act, though she kind of remains a Kaspar Hauser type figure.
The movie's plot has a very obvious feminist parable underpinning it. A young woman, a ward or even a prisoner to the men around her, discovers sexual pleasure and goes on an odyssey of self-discovery, even working at a brothel by choice because she is thumbing her nose at (patriarchal) Victorian society.
I'm kind of sick of these parables. Stone is great in her role, and so is Dafoe, and the movie mostly works because of them. But I don't want to be preached at or told what to think.
Christopher Abbott (from "Girls") makes a very belated appearance in the last twenty minutes. It feels like his character was added for necessity, to really drive the point home that this movie is a feminist parable. Although he is really just a plot device, Abbott is impressive in the role. It is interesting to reflect that he is almost unrecognisable in his role, and yet Willem Dafoe is not, and Dafoe is the one acting from underneath pounds of make-up.
"Poor Things" just isn't as thought-provoking, shocking, or contrarian as it should be. Its parable is surprisingly heavy handed and obvious, despite the movie being so unwound. I still appreciate that it exists, though.