Poor Things

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on March 7, 2024.

(MA15+) ★★★★★

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos.

Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Suzy Bemba, Jerrod Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, Vicki Pepperdine, Margaret Qualley, Hanna Schygulla.

"But why does the Lion not simply eat Dorothy?"

Way back in the early days of this millennium when I was a wee cadet journalist, one of the elder journos, who was always ready with a useful piece of advice, warned me off using the word "unique".

"It's one of the most misused words in journalism," he explained.

"It literally means 'one of a kind', so don't use it when you just mean 'different' and 'uncommon' - only use it when something is truly, literally 'unique' and there is nothing else like it."

After all these years, I feel I can finally use the word "unique".

Poor Things is a unique film. 

It's a steampunk coming-of-age fairy tale, mixed with an occasionally disturbing commentary on the patriarchy and a frequently hilarious exploration of morals and social conventions. It's bizarre, it's laugh-out-loud funny and it's wonderfully weird, yet it's also thought-provoking and confronting. If that's not unique, then I don't know what is, and I fear I will never get to use the word.

Poor Things is the story of Bella (Stone), who is the result of a morally dubious experiment by mad scientist Godwin Baxter (Dafoe). Having spent her entire life inside his lab, Bella is whisked away by a hedonistic cad named Duncan Wedderburn (Ruffalo) and begins a strange journey of self-discovery in a challenging world.

There is so much to admire about Poor Things. It often looks and feels like the love child of David Lynch and Terry Gilliam, but that's selling it short. Lanthimos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan give us fish-eye lenses, odd angles, plenty of zooms, pinhole views and every other weird trick they can think of to throw us off balance and show an unfamiliar world in which they can present some sadly familiar problems. It's wonderfully unsettling, and makes the incredible sets and stunning production design even more otherworldly.

Equally otherworldly is Stone as Bella. Her journey from infantile naivety to mature self-awareness is strangely powerful and powerfully strange, and Stone never misses a step along the way. It's a physical role, almost robotic in places, but Stone never stops finding the humanity in the absurdity.

Ruffalo is also excellent as the bon vivant brought to his knees by Bella. His is an equally flashy performance, and Ruffalo shows off his knack for over-the-top comedy as he chews his absurd accent and the scenery at the same time.

Poor Things is proof that there is room for weirdly wonderful cinema in this world. Fans of Lanthimos already knew this, but his latest gives us heart that such unique and inventive film-making can find a home among a wide audience.