Poor Things (new Yorgos Lanthimos film)

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I saw it last night. Emma Stone thoroughly deserves every award she gets and she's supported brilliantly by the rest of the cast. Mark Ruffalo is particularly good, showing off comic chops I never knew he had as a rakish fop. Someone should put him in a comedy with Ryan Gosling and let them ham it up.

Visually, it's like a mix of Wes Anderson and Terry Gilliam. I can imagine Lanthimos' commitment to ultra wide lenses might not be to everyone's taste, but I thought the film looked great, with some lovely set designs.

And it's bloody funny. There are lines that I can tell are going to become part of my friend group's lexicon.

... but there was nothing about Glasgow in it, so it's rubbish.

[selectivememory]

I wasn't sure at first about Mark Ruffalo. Genuinely wondered if he'd been miscast. But when his character started getting jealous and then became a pathetic, huffy mess for the remainder of the film, he completely won me round. Willem Dafoe was great as well.

The only Lanthimos film I feel I can compare this to is The Favourite, because these two films both feel like a massive departure from and/or progression in his style (doing away with the deliberately odd and stilted dialogue and flat, affectless acting style in particular). But I would say I strongly preferred how that film looked compared to this one. I was thinking about what I disliked so much about the set design and aesthetic, and I think it was simply finding some of the colour contrasts really garish and unpleasant to look at. And I did like the look of the scenes set in London and Paris, but the outdoors scenes set in Lisbon, Alexandria and the cruise ship were so visually unappealing to me. Can see a lot of people feel differently so quite happy to chalk this up to being a matter of personal taste though.

As far as the Glasgow stuff goes, this film is very much the Bella Baxter story, and everything else is secondary to that. I basically think it's fine to pick an element out of a work you're adapting and emphasising that over everything else. It's not like anything is actually lost, because anyone can still read the book, and Gray isn't exactly an obscure writer. Lanthimos is a fairly unconventional director, so it shouldn't be that surprising that he'd not just make a straightforward adaptation of the text.

[Tiggles]

Saw this today and absolutely fucking loved it. Superbly weird, resolutely existential, beautiful and really laugh out loud funny - an afternoon crowd in the cinema properly pissing themselves is a wonderful thing. Stone is incredible but all the performances are degrees of good to excellent. Ruffalo was particularly game for being ridiculous.

Gonna see it again once it's sunk in a bit.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Been staying away from this thread as wanted to go in blind, thought it was great. Stone was working so much harder than everyone else it felt like she was practically doing one of those 'playing twins' type jobs.

[Led Souptin]

Yeah this was really really really good. Nothing much to add really. Huge belly laughs all the way through. Looked and sounded amazing too. Best film I've ever seen 9/10

[Toxteth OGrady]

Just back from this, fantastic. Funny, moving, lots of sex but never erotic. Missed the cast list apart from leg-humping guy, so I need to check them out.

Agree with selectivememory about the colours. The skies felt try hard at times. But pah, it was sound. Also because I'm childish and pathetic:

Spoiler alert

hairy business

[close]

[AllisonSays]

I thought it was alright! Emma Stone wss compelling. I agree that the colours and set design were often very horrible to look at - a strange choice.

In retrospect I can see why he'd be interested in the adaptation - lots of parallels with Dogtooth - confinement vs the corrupting world, sex as a physical thing but also a mental thing, weird socialization.

Some of the writing was a bit clunky but it was also often funny. Glad I saw it!

[AllisonSays]

Next I'd like a luridly pornographic adaptation of 1982, Janine!

[Wet Blanket]

Thought it was brilliant if also a bit exhausting. Not sure it really needed the final section.

It was great fun watching with a packed cinema giving it big laughs, but I'm looking forward to watching it again on my own. It has a melancholy undercurrent that I reckon will come off a lot stronger on second viewing and without a riotous audience.

[Led Souptin]

Agree with selectivememory about the colours. The skies felt try hard at times.

I think the skies and colours were intentionally brash, as you're experiencing the world through the eyes of Bella who is essentially a toddler experiencing everything for the first time. Not a lot of room for nuance. Like where she sees

Spoiler alert

the dead babies and everything around her turns to hell

[close]

[Tiggles]

It was great fun watching with a packed cinema giving it big laughs, but I'm looking forward to watching it again on my own. It has a melancholy undercurrent that I reckon will come off a lot stronger on second viewing and without a riotous audience.

I think I'm always going to laugh at Ruffalo in this, but there are definitely sad and disturbing themes in Poor Things. I'm looking forward to my subsequent viewings too.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Thought it was brilliant if also a bit exhausting. Not sure it really needed the final section.

It was great fun watching with a packed cinema giving it big laughs, but I'm looking forward to watching it again on my own. It has a melancholy undercurrent that I reckon will come off a lot stronger on second viewing and without a riotous audience.

Yeah it's got a bit of a long run here and I'm well up for having another go on it towards the end when it's a bit quieter.

About 10 minutes in there was a bit of muttering behind us and a bloke in the middle of a row announced 'yeah I think we better go' and escorted his partner out in a way that suggested she was a bit distressed. It hadn't really got to the more disturbing elements at that point either so probably better they left when they did.

[Mister Six]

Amazed that people didn't like the set design. I thought it was incredible. As for the colours, I thought they worked brilliantly, and as mentioned:

I think the skies and colours were intentionally brash, as you're experiencing the world through the eyes of Bella who is essentially a toddler experiencing everything for the first time. Not a lot of room for nuance. Like where she sees

Spoiler alert

the dead babies and everything around her turns to hell

[close]

The camerawork and palette alike become more steady and "normal", less chaotic and expressionist, as Bella's mind develops over the course of the film.

[Mobbd]

The camerawork and palette alike become more steady and "normal", less chaotic and expressionist, as Bella's mind develops over the course of the film.

That sounds excellent and true to the book. In the book, her letters go from scribble to elegant.

I'm seeing this on Friday. Really looking forward to it.

[sevendaughters]

Seen it! Liked it! Favourite Lanthimos so far and the spirit of Gray is intact. Some overreaches for humour imo but will see again down the line.

[greenman]

Amazed that people didn't like the set design. I thought it was incredible. As for the colours, I thought they worked brilliantly, and as mentioned:

The camerawork and palette alike become more steady and "normal", less chaotic and expressionist, as Bella's mind develops over the course of the film.

You get the shift from monochrome at the start as well but I feel its more than just the development of the character but also a reflection of the drama with scenes like the husbands house becoming more bland, maybe a comment that a open minded more childlike natural is not something to be entirely lost and tends to be the product of sexist repression.

Honestly I was surprised just how good it looked with "only" a $35 million budget, looked like it cost at least double that with the degree of detail in some of the sets. Some wonderfully strange little ideas as well like the top of the Alexandra lighthouse being totally isolated from what lies below and only reached by cablecar from the cruise ship.

Early stages it did perhaps feel a bit Lathimos going over well worn ground with nails on the chalk board to middle class mores but  that did definitely built towards something very much his own and arguably his "nicest" film by some way.

[Mister Six]

I will say that I thought her moral stance at the end was a bit odd. "I won't have this man die from blood loss." But you will have him die from having his brain scooped out of his head and thrown in the bin? And the poor goat!

Not saying I have a problem with lobotomising female circumcision enthusiasts, but don't dress it up as some kind of mercy.

[sevendaughters]

I will say that I thought her moral stance at the end was a bit odd. "I won't have this man die from blood loss." But you will have him die from having his brain scooped out of his head and thrown in the bin? And the poor goat!

I kind of saw it as her inheritance of Godwin and his dad, perhaps indicating a sliver of a chance she may be equally as, uh, moral as a doctor.

[Mister Six]

Oh, sure, just don't phrase it in quite that way, you know?

[AngryGazelle]

I saw this last night and thought it was great; absolutely hilarious and incredibly well performed.

I think the visual style was perfect for the film; the lens choices added to the surrealism and as mentioned above the colours added the feeling of childlike wonder Bella was experiencing.

The music stood out too. Loved those plucked strings.

The last part of the film with the husband felt a little rushed but the ending was by no means a bad one.

I definitely want to see this again.

[Pink Gregory]

I know ultimately this is a niche film, but it's surprising when you think a film that gets shown outside of the arthouses can't be that transgressive, this comes along

[Sebastian Cobb]

I know ultimately this is a niche film, but it's surprising when you think a film that gets shown outside of the arthouses can't be that transgressive, this comes along

I guess one of Lanthimos' main skills is being able to snare big names so it probably lets distributors see him as less of a risk and more likely to pique normies interests than, say, someone like Peter Strickland who often uses (or reuses) some not-well-known Europeans.

[Pink Gregory]

I guess one of Lanthimos' main skills is being able to snare big names so it probably lets distributors see him as less of a risk and more likely to pique normies interests than, say, someone like Peter Strickland who often uses (or reuses) some not-well-known Europeans.

I do wonder if he's working purely in the english language now, which would seem a shame, but probably gets more interest internationally

[greenman]

I guess one of Lanthimos' main skills is being able to snare big names so it probably lets distributors see him as less of a risk and more likely to pique normies interests than, say, someone like Peter Strickland who often uses (or reuses) some not-well-known Europeans.

Stickland has also never really had a breakout sucess like The Lobster which I'm guessing is when Hollywood started to take interest and throw some more serious money his way.

His career has tended to be a bit stop/start Dogtooth and Alps came out quite fast then a break before The Lobster, Sacred Deer and the Favourite then another big gap to this but he has another in Kinds of Kindness which has already finished filming so could be out within the next year.

[sevendaughters]

wouldn't call it transgressive, it is very in line with contemporary morals - pop at the patriarchy, sex positivity, women living their authentic selves - but I accept it is weirder than 99.5% of multiplex offerings these days.

[Obel]

Stickland has also never really had a breakout sucess like The Lobster which I'm guessing is when Hollywood started to take interest and throw some more serious money his way.

It's a shame really because I think In Fabric is amazing and should be more of a break out film. I guess the 70s horror vibe and general weirdness of it prevented it from crossing over into mainstream appeal. It's a shame that Flux Gourmet was largely rubbish IMO

[Sebastian Cobb]

Personally I liked Flux Gourmet.

I liked In Fabric too, but didn't really like the washing machine third of the tale. Which is kind of a pity as it was great to see Hayley Squires crop up in something so weird after doing I, Daniel Blake (although thankfully she seems to be continuing this trajectory with Beau is Afraid and that Channel 4 miniseries about working in the scud industry).

[Pink Gregory]

wouldn't call it transgressive, it is very in line with contemporary morals - pop at the patriarchy, sex positivity, women living their authentic selves - but I accept it is weirder than 99.5% of multiplex offerings these days.

point taken - personally I didn't cringe too much at the more on the nose dialogue in that direction because I felt like it was largely being played for comedy - but what would it take to be actually transgressive, in comparison?

[Sebastian Cobb]

You could argue sex positivity isn't that unusual these days, but I thought it's probably one of best executions of not judging the character at all, usually there's some judgement there either on behalf of the characters (that you're not supposed to align with), or they sort of knowingly corral you into a position of positivity or knowingly-guilty negativity. In this I don't think there was anything there at all.

[sevendaughters]

point taken - personally I didn't cringe too much at the more on the nose dialogue in that direction because I felt like it was largely being played for comedy - but what would it take to be actually transgressive, in comparison?

my very glib answer would be 'if it's in the cinema, it isn't transgressive' but I haven't thought too hard about it! Instead, let me throw you over to underground cinema maniac Nick Zedd and his Cinema of Transgression Manifesto!

We who have violated the laws, commands and duties of the avant-garde; i.e. to bore, tranquilize and obfuscate through a fluke process dictated by practical convenience stand guilty as charged. We openly renounce and reject the entrenched academic snobbery which erected a monument to laziness known as structuralism and proceeded to lock out those filmmakers who possesed the vision to see through this charade.

We refuse to take their easy approach to cinematic creativity; an approach which ruined the underground of the sixties when the scourge of the film school took over. Legitimising every mindless manifestation of sloppy movie making undertaken by a generation of misled film students, the dreary media arts centres and geriatic cinema critics have totally ignored the exhilarating accomplishments of those in our rank – such underground invisibles as Zedd, Kern, Turner, Klemann, DeLanda, Eros and Mare, and DirectArt Ltd, a new generation of filmmakers daring to rip out of the stifling straight jackets of film theory in a direct attack on every value system known to man.

We propose that all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again. We propose that a sense of humour is an essential element discarded by the doddering academics and further, that any film which doesn't shock isn't worth looking at. All values must be challenged. Nothing is sacred. Everything must be questioned and reassessed in order to free our minds from the faith of tradition.Intellectual growth demands that risks be taken and changes occur in political, sexual and aesthetic alignments no matter who disapproves. We propose to go beyond all limits set or prescribed by taste, morality or any other traditional value system shackling the minds of men. We pass beyond and go over boundaries of millimeters, screens and projectors to a state of expanded cinema.

We violate the command and law that we bore audiences to death in rituals of circumlocution and propose to break all the taboos of our age by sinning as much as possible. There will be blood, shame, pain and ecstasy, the likes of which no one has yet imagined. None shall emerge unscathed. Since there is no afterlife, the only hell is the hell of praying, obeying laws, and debasing yourself before authority figures, the only heaven is the heaven of sin, being rebellious, having fun, fucking, learning new things and breaking as many rules as you can. This act of courage is known as transgression. We propose transformation through transgression – to convert, transfigure and transmute into a higher plane of existence in order to approach freedom in a world full of unknowing slaves.

It reads well if you imagine him wearing a leather jacket and nothing else.