What the Greek director revealed at the Venice 80 competition is more than a female version of Frankenstein, it’s a subversive figure on the path to extreme emancipation, to hell with patriarchy, which is even more shouted about and yes, literally, enjoyed
Photo: Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight Pictures
Either you love him or you hate him, Yorgos Lanthimos: either way, his Poor things (in Italian Poor creatures!) it is the most talked about film (and definitely one of the best) presented at the festival. Greek director from Venice is a creature (sorry): after debuting at Cannes with Fangit was Lido who dedicated him to the Author, first with Alps and even more so with Most lovely. Here is this savage troika for women, the adaptation of the graphic novel by Scot Alasdair Gray has the same raw energy, the same extreme black humor, the same baroque mood. It is no coincidence that the screenwriter is the same Tony McNamara, who is also the new MVP of the blackest costume comedy (see below). Great believe).
However, if in that case Emma Stone left the honors and duties of Olivia Colman, then here she takes everything. He pees on the floor, barks, throws dishes and, for an apple, risks making Timothée Chalamet out of call me by name and his fishing. After the vampire Pinochet of Larren, another “monster” appears on the scene. But more than the female version of Frankenstein, the version Poor things – punk barbie on the road to extreme emancipation, fuck you he shouted at the patriarchy even more and yes, – literally – enjoyed it.
In fact, unlike the Margot Robbie doll, Bella Baxter is a very sexy creature, a young pregnant woman who throws herself off London’s Tower Bridge and is “rescued” by Willem Dafoe’s mad anatomist Godwin (God for Friends), becoming his favorite experiment. At first, she has the mental age of a child in the body of an adult, she learns to walk and talk, throws tantrums. Then comes this spring awakeningwhat does the libertine and narcissistic lawyer (Mark Ruffalo, the perfect Victorian Ken) use to get her out of mansion Scientist from London Triangle of Sexuality, a European grand tour full of eroticism and adventure that – ahem – will shape her. In the words of Yorgos Lanthimos: “Your mind can start over, freely, without shame or prejudice, to experience the world on its own terms.” In practice: who wants, when he wants, when he does not immerse himself in the books that (!) Fassbinder’s Hanna Schigulla lends him. Hooray.
Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo. Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures
Inside Terry Gilliam, Wes Anderson, David Lynch, Werner Herzog, Lars von Trier, but above all there is Lanthimos, a virtuoso of bizarre and destabilizing phenomena, who for this gothic novel energy steampunk retrofuturist (costumes!) creates an extraordinary, artificial, swirling world that starts in black and white, and then entertains with juicy and rich tones. And sometimes abuses a wide angle.
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone on set. Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures
Almost the entire story is taken directly from Gray’s comics, but the director and McNamara added many scenes and details, including many curses, and focused on Bella’s sex life. Emma Stone is increasingly confirmed as a muse and partners in crime Lanthimos, using the body, the face, the eyes, between very comical moments, farce, but also tender and tragic moments: this is probably the best interpretation of his career, and the Academy will definitely notice it. But what a Frankenstein monster: Poor things it is the journey of a heroine who wants to study medicine herself, a romantic and subversive personality determined to be who she wants to be. And a thumbs up to everything else.