Skip to main content

Poor Things (2023)


Poor Things is a weird and fantasy take, and very loosely based on Frankenstein's Monster.

Yorgos Lanthimos has increased his directorial ability and budget since The Lobster. If you remember how bizarre that film was this is cranking it up even further. He's a modern, non-goth, Tim Burton. There is a fine line between being weird and being weird for the sake of being edge-y. Lanthimos balances that line perfectly. Lanthimos has a writer he loved working with named Tony McNamara as they've worked together on the 2018 film, The Favourite. 

Emma Stone should be and will most likely be nominated for an Oscar for this film. She has to do a lot in the film, from growing up mentally to regressing her motor skills to that of a baby in a full-grown body. Did I mention the film is weird? She works wonderfully next to Mark Ruffalo who plays the charismatic love interest through most of the film even though he's not her true love.

Willem Dafoe also acts in the film as the mad doctor. He has chickens with a dog's head and many odd things in his house. The film reminds you that this is a fantasy every once in a while and does so through Dafoe's Dr. Baxter. The cinematography is not something I talk about generally in these reviews but this film has some spectacular scenes in it. Robbie Ryan is the director of photography and has already been nominated once before where he also worked with Lanthimos on The Favourite.

The film is weird but greatly entertaining and sometimes funny. I only have reservations about the gratuitous amounts of nudity and graphic scenes. That keeps the film from receiving a higher grade from me, resulting in a B+.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Colony (2026)

Colony is written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho , the director behind the cult classic Train to Busan . While Train to Busan has become the more celebrated film, Colony shows how much Yeon has improved as both a writer and a director. The story is stronger, the filmmaking feels more confident, and the way he builds the world gives the movie more substance than I expected going in. Jun Ji-hyun is the clear standout of the cast. She does a fantastic job conveying emotion through subtle movements and expressions rather than relying on exaggerated acting. That is not surprising considering she is one of South Korea's best actresses, but she still manages to make the character feel grounded and believable. She carries much of the emotional weight of the film. I did not recognize many of the other actors, and unfortunately, none of them really stood out enough to make much of an impression. That is not necessarily a knock against the cast as much as it is a testament to how much Jun ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Verity (2026)

Verity was a surprise for me. Normally, the authors who turn their books into movies that I actually enjoy are Stephen King or Michael Crichton , but Colleen Hoover has been doing surprisingly well with the last four movies adaptations from her work. One thing I appreciate about her writing is that she knows how to write male characters who aren't weak or simply there to be punching bags for feminist talking points. That alone makes the characters feel more believable and gives the story a better balance. Dakota Johnson plays an up and coming writer who is brought in to ghostwrite for Anne Hathaway's character. This is easily Johnson's best performance yet. She does a good job carrying the movie and making the character's uncertainty and curiosity believable as the mystery around the house starts to unfold. Anne Hathaway does not have a huge amount to do because of her character's condition, but whenever she is actually on screen, she brings the energy you wo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Digger (2026)

Digger is directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and stars Tom Cruise as Digger Rockwell. Much like his name, there is a lot of symbolism and meaning packed into the film, along with plenty of references that brought a smile to my face. I went into this expecting it to be pretentious or outright bad because that was the prevailing opinion online before general audiences had even had a chance to see it. Anyone calling this movie pretentious clearly has not seen The Death of Robin Hood or Die My Love . Die My Love was so pretentious that my wife actually begged me to leave the theater, and I had to finish it another day. Digger , on the other hand, actually understands the difference between being ambitious and simply being self-important. Tom Cruise is great as Digger Rockwell, giving the character exactly the kind of larger-than-life personality the movie needs. There is so much going on beneath the surface that I found myself constantly looking for the symbolism and references hidden...
Post a Comment
Read more