An eye-popping, mind-bending and frequently jaw-dropping feminist twist on Frankenstein, Poor Things stars Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a young woman living in a steampunk version of Victorian London who, after committing suicide, is brought back to life by a lonely surgeon (Willem Dafoe). A fully grown woman with the mind of a child, Bella soon runs off with a debauched lawyer (Mark Ruffalo) and embarks on a globe-trotting odyssey of sexual liberation and personal discovery.
Poor Things arrives in theatres on a wave of acclaim that has been building for months since the movie won the Golden Lion at September’s Venice Film Festival. Following the success of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ gonzo 2018 period comedy The Favourite, which earned 10 Oscar nominations including best picture and director, many are expecting Poor Things to be a similarly formidable awards contender. Stone, who earned a supporting actress nomination for her turn in The Favourite and has become a close friend and muse to Lanthimos, is considered a lock for a lead actress nod for her fierce and fearless Bella.
With a budget in the ballpark of $US35 million, (NZ$56 million) more than double that of The Favourite, Poor Things is the Greek director’s biggest swing yet.
"It looks like people are enjoying the film," says Lanthimos, who is as low-key and modest in person as his movies are extreme. "That’s always good. You can’t complain about that."
If you see it as a sharp commentary on the patriarchy or simply a bawdy, over-the-top romp — that’s up to you, Lanthimos says. He never wants to tell an audience what to think.
"I hate being didactic," he says. "I feel like whatever we make should be somehow open enough that people can perceive it any way they want. At least, that’s how I approach it."
Lanthimos first read Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel Poor Things, on which the film is based, more than a decade ago and immediately connected with its skewed fairy-tale narrative and themes of power, control and identity. "I got extremely excited," he recalls. "The character of Bella, the tone, the humour, the world it created, the Gothic element — I don’t think I’d read anything like it before."
Stone jumped at the prospect of playing a woman liberated from any sense of shame or societal pressure, signing on to produce the film as well as star in it. "Just from the premise alone and his explanation of Bella, I was totally in love," Stone says by phone. "She’s my favourite character ever."
Lanthimos and Stone knew that diving into Bella’s story would require boldly exploring the character’s burgeoning sexual appetite, which alternately shocks and seduces those around her. For Stone that meant doing the kind of nudity and explicit sex scenes that stars often avoid. "It was clear that we couldn’t make a prudish film," says Lanthimos. "If we shied away from Bella’s sexuality, it would feel totally disingenuous to the character."
Lanthimos and Stone spent months developing how Bella would look, move and sound, cementing the creative bond they had formed on The Favourite.
"We just get along," says Stone. "We’re able to make fun of each other and share perspectives that might be different. It’s extremely helpful to have that level of comfort, especially when you’re working with subject matter like what’s in this movie. You need to have that kind of trust to be able to let go and know that the captain of the ship is there to really guide things."
To create the film’s bizarro version of Victorian society, Lanthimos and his creative team, including production designers Shona Heath and James Price, took inspiration from movies as varied as Luis Bunuel’s 1967 psychodrama Belle de Jour, Federico Fellini’s 1983 spectacle And the Ship Sails On and Francis Ford Coppola’s visually sumptuous 1992 Dracula.
Under Lanthimos’ direction, the film’s production team built the script’s elaborately stylised versions of Paris, London and Lisbon from scratch, constructing massive sets on soundstages in Budapest and employing old-school techniques such as miniatures and painted backdrops instead of relying on extensive CGI.
"I wanted it to feel like a familiar period and a familiar place but also make it unique to Bella’s perspective," says Lanthimos, who had the movie shot on specially manufactured 35mm Kodak Ektachrome stock for its vibrant colour. "We wanted to introduce elements that would make it feel futuristic from the perspective of that period."
Before shooting, Lanthimos gathered his cast, which also includes Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbot, for a rehearsal period, leading the performers through a series of theatre games designed to break down their inhibitions, as he had done on his previous pictures.
"I think we spent maybe 20% of the time actually reading the script, and the rest we’d play all day," Ruffalo says by phone. "We would do things like puppeteer someone while they said their lines or touch each other’s faces and talk about the most beautiful parts of them between each line. It all came through this kind of physical play. I think that’s why we could push things in the film as far as we did without actually breaking it. Because we’d done it already, in a way."
Such rehearsals, Lanthimos says, are the only part of the entire film-making process he truly enjoys. "It’s so free, and there’s no consequences," he says. "You can have fun and bond and just have a dream of what this is going to be."
He pauses and lets out a small sigh. "And then, of course, it’s shattered."
While his films take a rather dim view of human nature, Lanthimos insists he’s not a misanthrope. "I guess when you look at the totality of the work, you go, ‘Oh, that’s quite pessimistic,"’ he says. "Asking questions about difficult subjects and relationships always leaves you with a kind of complicated aftertaste. But I think that’s important. I couldn’t imagine myself making a film about something which was resolved and pleasant and positive. Because then what would be the point?" — TCA
The film
Poor Things opens on January 1
