Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos Get Honest With Each Other
The protagonist of the new film Poor Things is no ordinary heroine. As played by Emma Stone, Bella Baxter is a corpse reanimated by a man who replaced her brain with that of her unborn child; she’s therefore a blend of juvenile innocence and adult promiscuity, shamelessly charting her own course through life because she’s never been conditioned to meet societal constraints. She has no clue what womanhood is supposed to entail or how she’s expected to behave, yet she looks full-grown—a Frankenstein’s monster dressed in frilly outfits, without a single scar in sight.
Like her, is brazenly, gleefully original in its presentation and ideas. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and based on Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, the movie takes place in a steampunk, otherworldly Victorian wonderland, and Bella’s story unfolds like a twisted fairy tale. Seeking freedom and adventure, she embarks on a journey around the world, which leads to encounters with characters who are simultaneously enthralled and threatened by her singular perspective—and who all try to control her in their own way. With them, she pursues experiences, many of them sexual, that shape her understanding of what it means to be fully
