POOR THINGS (2023) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Yorgos Lanthimos
Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo,
Ramy Youssef, Kathryn Hunter, Jerrod Carmichael,
Suzy Bemba, Christopher Abbott, Hanna Schygulla
A wonderfully strange (and funny) twist on "Frankenstein", starring Willem Dafoe as a scar-faced scientist named Godwin Baxter (or "God"), and Emma Stone as his creation, Bella, the product of an especially perverse surgical procedure. A curiously accented Mark Ruffalo plays a wealthy rake who whisks Bella off to a life of hedonism and discovery, a decision he lives to regret. Fantastic production design, captured with camerawork that shifts between color and black and white, a musical score that feels as imperfectly stitched together as Bella's psyche or Godwin's face, and a central performance by Stone that takes breathtaking risks, an actress who's in total control playing a character who has no concept of it. There might be other women who could do what Stone does here, but there can't be many, and, anyway, Stone's the one who did it. You don't want to take your eyes off her for a second. And in a movie where you wouldn't think emotional engagement would even be possible, she makes you care. It's a remarkable achievement in a crazy, amazing, one-of-a-kind film.
