Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael
Screenplay: Tony McNamara
141 mins. Rated R for strong and pervasive sexual content, graphic nudity, disturbing material, gore, and language.

Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) read the 1992 novel Poor Things many years ago and has wanted to adapt it to film for quite some time now. He made a smart decision on waiting until he was given the opportunity to achieve his vision, which must’ve happened when he made a Best Picture nominee in The Favourite. Now, with Poor Things, Lanthimos has made his most ambitious film yet, and quite possible his best.

When Max McCandless (Ramy Youssef, Why Him?) is invited to work for Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe, The Grand Budapest Hotel) at his home, he discovers a houseguest of peculiar mannerisms, Bella (Emma Stone, La La Land). Godwin found her body devoid of life and brings her back to life through his unusual experimentation. Now, Bella wants to experience the world and all it has to offer, including a lot of time experimenting her body. As she slowly figures out the person she wants to be, she has to question everything she’s been taught in her young new life.

It becomes clear rather early on that Emma Stone was committing to the role of Bella in every way. Poor Things is full of sexual promiscuity on the part of Bella, often engaging in numerous sexual acts in her bodily exploration and sexual awakening. That’s not a complaint about the film, more just an observation of what Emma puts into her character in this, her third collaboration with Lanthimos. Hers is the character worth talking about upon leaving the film, which is surprising in any film where a character shares time with Willem Dafoe. Stone accesses that curiosity that comes with new experience and finds some brilliantly comedic ways of expressing while also reminding me as a viewer of the sadness that comes with it.

If there’s one actor capable of stealing scenes from Stone, it is Mark Ruffalo (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) as Duncan Wedderburn, the lecherous lawyer who uses his knowledge of the world to get into Bella’s mind…and her bedchamber. Ruffalo is perfectly clued into what both Lanthimos and Stone are crating, and he turns in one of the best supporting performances of the year, one that is just a shade or two away from normal, enough to feel out of place in any normal narrative but wonderfully scene-stealing in this one.

Poor Things’ central theme seems to be birth and rebirth without society getting its hooks in. Bella’s spent so much of her life indoors and away from the “decency” and “civility” of society. She’s developed a curiosity and love of experience, something we shed as we get older and fit into a designated box. Bella hasn’t been bent into shape yet, and she made me strive for experience as well, even something as simple of spitting out food she doesn’t like and punching a baby that has an annoying cry.

More than that, I couldn’t help feeling that all of the characters in the film trying to fit her into the box are men. It seems that they try so hard to make her fit their views of her, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that she simply cannot do, resisting and pulling away further down her path of exploration. There are the more obvious intrusive men like Ruffalo’s Duncan or the mystery character that appears near the end of the film, but even Godwin and Max are trying to mold Bella into someone that fits their view of societal norms, unsuccessfully of course. That’s not to say that Poor Things is anti-men or anything silly like that. In fact, one of the most instrumental characters in Bella’s journey is Harry Astley (Jerrod Carmichael, The Disaster Artist), a man Bella meets on a cruise ship who gives her advice on living by her own rules. His life lessons are not meant to constrict but to enhance her life experience.

Sure, the movie is a delightfully odd affair with one glaring, damaging problem. At 141 minutes, Poor Things is simply too damn long, and the final 30 minutes or so cover many of the bases we’ve already trekked in earlier parts of the narrative. I felt the length of the film without knowing the run time, and I wasn’t surprised to find that it is the longest film Lanthimos has made. The pacing suffers due to the length, and there were better places to find the finish line.

With shades of The Elephant Man, Poor Things becomes the best film from Yorgos Lanthimos yet, and like Lynch, Lanthimos builds worlds that only he can play in. His color palette and visual peculiarity are terrifically absurd and wonderfully vibrant, filled with solid acting including two standout performances from Stone and Ruffalo. While being overstuffed, Poor Things is absolutely worth seeing.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe