"Poor Things" by Yorgos Lanthimos (2023)

 

In retrospective, I should just not even bother.

When my original cinema partner suddenly cancelled what was the perfect Sunday plan, I found myself stuck with cinema tickets and restaurant reservation. And since Virgo's love to plan everything in advance, this was extremely frustrating because I had this outing in mind the whole week before that. When person B started requesting different screening time, it became even more problematic. At the end I end up dragging my poor other half (who has all sorts of stomach problems at the moment and is not a good cinema company), cancelling the restaurant and basically changing the whole damn plan. And the cinema was full of obnoxious people who could not find their seats, talked loud amongst themselves and basically were just a nuisance. 

And the film - oh the film was so hyped as the best thing ever and judging by some critics, even best film of the year. Fear not, it is not. It is luxuriously wrapped (in spectacular cinematography) overblown saga that combines elements of Frankenstein with Kaspar Hauser with some pro-feministic philosophy added as a spice. It boasts well known and bankable talents of Willem Dafoe, Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo plus some beautiful cameos by Hanna Schygulla (random passenger on a cruise ship) and Kathryn Hunter ( a bordello madame). It follows Stone as some sort of Frankenstein-creature who escapes the confinement of her maker's elegant home and goes to experience the adventures with horny Mark Ruffalo in tow. It starts quite good (all black & white) than turns into full MGM cinemascope fantasy once Stone enters the world but after a while you realise that the movie just meanders without any effective purpose expect to shock the audiences with never ending visual gimmicks and insistence on perpetual upsetting of the audience with more nudity, more cunnilingus, etc. 

The movie would honestly gain from shorter screening time and better editing - if the director Yorgos Lanthimos focused more on a straightforward story instead of piling up special effects and more sex jokes, perhaps it would be more bearable - I found myself constantly looking at the watch, feeling bad for my sick partner (and his rumbling stomach) and it was annoying to realise that all this mega-hype resulted in a stone faced audience and the only people in the cinema who were actually entertained were some teenagers who probably thought all this sex jokes were so cool and funny. I just did not find it funny at all - the character of Emma Stone is basically a revived zombie who finds herself learning how to walk, talk and behave, in the process she also discovers the joys of sex & masturbation and most of the jokes come from her bluntness about it (usually in the public places). As she grabs every fruit and vegetable from the dinner table and stuff it inside herself, the audience is initially shocked but it gets tiresome after a while and I just did not find it nor funny nor entertaining. I apologised to my cinema partner (suffering in silence and not laughing once) as we left the cinema. critics loved it, I did not. Not the first time it happens.