Poor creatures!, all about Yorgos Lanthimos’ film that just debuted at the Venice Film Festival. Plot, cast, review and trailer
Most lovely (2018) by Yorgos Lanthimos is undeniably one of the greatest cinematic successes of recent years: an absolutely crazy eighteenth-century adventure that thrilled audiences, dazzled critics, garnered 10 Oscar nominations, and secured Olivia Colman her well-deserved best actress statuette. It is therefore only natural that expectations are high for the Greek director’s new feature film, which has just premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. let `s talk about Poor creatures!an equally unusual costume film based on the novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray (published in 1992), featuring one of the stars Most lovely, by Emma Stone, and also written by Tony McNamara, co-writer of Lanthimos’ previous hit. Does it live up to expectations? In short, yes, but it’s also more bizarre, frantic and more ambitious than its predecessor: a film that crosses boundaries and subverts our assumptions with the same glee and recklessness that characterizes its wide-open heroine.
Female Frankenstein
The latest is Bella Baxter, portrayed by Stone in a delightfully childlike manner, showing us that this is almost certainly her most eccentric and perhaps even her best performance to date. When we first meet Bella, she is the rebellious “child” of Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), a pioneering Victorian surgeon who, as we soon discover, found the girl’s corpse in the Thames and gave birth to the daughter that was in her chest. womb – miraculously survived – and, transplanting the brain into the skull of the deceased, brought the latter back to life. As a result of this twisted experiment, Bella is transformed into an overgrown baby who quickly learns to walk, talk, and assert herself (her caretaker’s nickname is “God”). At some point, to oversee Bella’s development, Baxter has an associate, Max McCandless (Rami Yousef), who ends up falling in love with the girl. Godwin agrees to give him Bella’s hand in marriage on the condition that they both stay with him, except that she, who is sexually open and adventurous, has other ideas. Meet shrewd lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (wild Mark Ruffalo), a libertine who makes Bella lose her head and drags her on a crazy grand tour that opens her eyes to all the possibilities the world has to offer.