The Big Picture
- Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Emma Stone, promises to be a whimsical and unconventional movie that combines elements of fairy tales, absurdity, and horror, with allusions to Frankenstein.
- The partnership between Lanthimos and Stone has been fruitful, as they previously worked together on the critically acclaimed film The Favourite and have already collaborated on a new secret project.
- Early screenings of Poor Things have received overwhelmingly positive praise, and the movie’s December premiere date may be strategic for awards season consideration.
The more footage we see from Poor Things, the less we seem to understand what the new Emma Stone (Cruella) movie is all about. This is great, of course, because it suggests we might be in for one of the great surprises of the year. In case you need to be even more confused, though, Searchlight Pictures released today a new trailer that sheds a little more light on what we can expect to see in theaters this December.
One thing that we can tell from the new trailer or Poor Things is that Stone’s adventure as Bella Baxter will be a whimsical story that mixes fairy tale elements, absurd imagery and a spruce of horror that mostly comes in the form of the movie’s allusion to Frankenstein. In the story, Bella is created by a scientist and becomes so curious about the world that she decides to explore it.
It’s not surprising that Poor Things takes a route for the weird, since its Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos is internationally known for crafting stories that are wildly unconventional, frequently absurd and downright shocking sometimes. The best example of this is Dogtooth, his breakout title that centers around a family that decided to live isolated from society conventions. He also directed The Lobster, which centers around a world in which people who can’t find a romantic partner within a certain timeframe are transformed into animals.
Lanthimos and Stone: A Fruitful Partnership
The partnership between Lanthimos and Stone has proven successful. They first worked together on Oscar-nominated The Favourite, which earned Stone an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The duo has already prepared their next project together, a movie they filmed in secret and is yet to be officially announced. So far, all we know is that it is smaller in scale than Poor Things, and it was shot in Greece.
Even though Poor Things is yet to premiere, the movie has made rounds in some film festivals across the world and it has received overwhelmingly positive praise from its early screenings. The premiere date to December may have been strategic so that the movie remains fresh on voters’ minds when the Awards season begins in early 2024.
Poor Things premieres in theaters on December 8. You can watch the new trailer below:
Check out the official synopsis here:
From filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Emma Stone comes the tale of the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
