Movie Review

Emma Stone is a tour de force in bizarre but hilarious Poor Things

There are lots of directors with off-kilter sensibilities out there, but few are weirder than Yorgos Lanthimos. The creator of The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and The Favourite is unafraid to take audiences to some supremely odd places, with all of his films holding only a tenuous connection to a recognizable reality.

His latest, Poor Things, might just his most out-there yet, and that’s saying something. Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) is aptly named, as he has made it his mission in life to play God, creating hybrids out of all sorts of animals. He’s also into reanimation, which is where Bella (Emma Stone) comes into the picture, having been brought back to life following her suicide, with Dr. Baxter putting the brain of the fetus she was carrying into her head.

The result is a child in the body of a woman, and Bella acts how you might expect, walking in a tentative manner, speaking mostly gibberish, and testing every object she comes across. Dr. Baxter brings in one of his students, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), to observe her, and he finds out that one of her biggest interests is her own body, and how to bring it as much pleasure as possible. Her explorations soon send her on an adventure that will involve another man, lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), and many others.

Adapted by Tony McNamara from the book by Alasdair Grey, the film is one of the strangest stories about giving a woman agency (sexual and otherwise) that’s ever been put on screen. There is little in the film that is not unsettling, and because it’s a constant parade of oddities, it also becomes one of the funniest movies of the year in the process. Bella’s unfiltered mind leads her to say and do all sorts of unexpected things, and it never fails to be hilarious.

The film also puts the audience on their heels through its audio and visuals. It has a Victorian-era setting to match its Frankenstein-esque story and other sensibilities, along with some steampunk/futuristic elements. Throw in the grotesquerie on display at Dr. Baxter’s house (including his own heavily scarred face), a dissonant soundtrack, and more, and you have an experience that you will only find in a Lanthimos movie.

Photo by Atsushi Nishijima

Emma Stone in Poor Things.

It’s mentioned in passing early on that Bella’s mind and body are advancing quickly, and it’s fun to watch this play out in subtle ways. Each new sequence has her change either mentally or physically, and because of everything else going on, it often takes a while to fully understand just how much she is different. The transformation by the end is astonishing compared with where she started.

Stone, who earned an Oscar nomination for her role in The Favourite, is in line for more awards for this part. She puts it all out there, literally and figuratively, with her performance, accomplishing a feat of which few others are capable. Dafoe is his usual steadying force, and Youssef, Ruffalo, and others have a ball playing along with all the craziness.

There is no way to watch Poor Things and not be impressed by the sheer guts of all involved to make such a film. And yet, for all of its outlandishness, it actually has a compelling story to tell, and the ideal actor to inhabit the lead role.

---

Poor Things opens in select theaters on December 15; it opens wide on December 22.

movies film reviews

Movie Review

Cillian Murphy tells a local Irish story in Small Things Like These

Photo by Enda Bowe/Lionsgate

Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These.

Last we saw actor Cillian Murphy, he was starring in the titular role of Oppenheimer, a role that would go on to earn him a Best Actor Oscar, not to mention many awards for the film itself. Instead of a big, flashy follow-up to build on that momentum, Murphy has gone in the opposite direction with the small and personal Small Things Like These.

Set in the 1980s in Murphy’s native Ireland, the film centers on Bill (Murphy), who owns a coal delivery company. One of his clients is the local convent, and during a delivery he witnesses a young pregnant woman being forced into the convent against her will by her mother. The scene triggers memories from his own childhood when he was raised by a single mother.

Every subsequent delivery to the convent has him questioning his own morality, although his taciturn nature doesn’t allow him to share his misgivings with his wife, Eileen (Eileen Walsh). With the Catholic Church an all-encompassing entity in Ireland, even if Bill wanted to help the girls who are trapped and mistreated at the convent, he’s not sure of any way to go about it.

Directed by Tim Mielants and written by Enda Walsh, the film has a slow build to it, so slow that it is a little difficult to ascertain the point of the story. The filmmakers go back and forth between scenes showing Bill as an adult and Bill as a child, and even though they each contain elements of trauma for the characters, the connection between the two timelines is not as strong as they might want it to be.

Even when it’s not part of a scene, the power of the church is the driving force of the film. Bill is clearly having a crisis of faith given his history and what he sees, but his wife seems to be willfully ignorant of any faults of the church and remains a true believer. The few segments that take the audience inside the convent are full of unforgiving nuns, with Sister Mary (Emily Watson) as their ultra-stern leader.

Given that this is an Irish film featuring all Irish actors, heavy accents accompany the majority of the dialogue, making it difficult to understand at times. This is clearly not an issue with the filmmaking and it helps with the verisimilitude of the story, but anyone who doesn’t have a lot of experience with the Irish accent may find themselves a little lost and/or disengaged with the emotions of the story.

Murphy’s role in Oppenheimer and this one don’t share much in common save for the fact that he clearly put his whole self into each of them. This is a testament to Murphy’s skills and dedication that he cares as much about an inherently local story as he did about a world-changing one. Walsh and Watson are also great as two women who have a huge influence on Bill’s outlook on life.

Small Things Like These, based on the book by Claire Keegan, is not as huge a takedown of the Catholic Church as some other films, but it’s still a searing indictment of its arcane practices. It’s one made even more effective by using a smaller story of one man’s lonely fight against injustice.

---

Small Things Like These opens in theaters on November 8.

movies