Directed by YORGOS LANTHIMOS
Starring EMMA STONE, WILLEM DAFOE, MARK RUFFALO
Released 12 JANUARY
Tower Bridge. The chime of a bell. We see the back of a black-haired woman’s head against a leaden sky, her hair tightly tucked in a bun. Then, her cobalt blue gown flaps in the wind as she flings herself off the bridge. In the opening of Yorgos Lanthimos’ sensational eighth feature, Poor Things, one woman falls into the film’s rich, icy colour scheme, while another one emerges in black and white. That curious person is then seen drumming a few piano keys with her long hair getting in the way. She has little in common with the elegant (but suicidal) lady from before; yet they are one and the same.
Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is learning to, anyone?), it doesn't take long for the agreeable Max to fall for Bella, whose unfiltered baby speak stands at odds with her alluring feminine physique. In the spirit of its woman-child protagonist, Lanthimos’ film is a hybrid which betters itself at an accelerating pace: between gothic sensibility and fierce comedy; black-and-white and resplendent colour. It amalgamates notions of desire and death drive into a single, most curious whole.
