(Updated 11/30/2023)
If you like Emma Stone, or if you're captivated by fantasies that skew far away from Disney's kid-friendly fare, then POOR THINGS is for you. The new movie from Yorgos Lanthimos (THE LOBSTER, THE FAVOURITE, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER) takes inspiration from Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" to create a mind-bending battle of the sexes, with Emma Stone delivering one of the greatest performances you're likely to see this year.
This movie traces the journey of a character that we've never seen before, and does it with a style and level of energy that makes it totally unique. Check out the trailer for POOR THINGS below to get a taste of this surprising film.
When Does Poor Things Come Out?
Searchlight Pictures will release POOR THINGS in movie theatres on December 8.
Watch the Poor Things Trailer
What was that?! Even having seen all of the previous movies by Yorgos Lanthimos — some multiple times — this trailer feels like a bolt from the blue. The filmmaker is absolutely going for it, as is every member of the cast, or so it seems from this footage. We don't know quite what to expect, but this POOR THINGS trailer (and the content warning at the end with the "R" rating) suggests we should be ready for anything.
Poor Things Is Based on a Novel
The late Scottish author Alasdair Gray wrote the novel "Poor Things," upon which the film is based. His book was, in turn, based to some extent on "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, and the trailer above shows you some of the influence of Shelley's sci-fi masterwork on this movie. The book and movie both observe and explore the life of Bella Baxter, who, thanks to an outlandish bit of experimentation, "begins" life with an adult body and the brain of an infant.
The book's narrator is not necessarily reliable, and we do not know how the movie approaches that aspect of the tale. Certainly the trailer plays up the fantastic elements of the movie, which suggests that the story being told is metaphorical rather than literal.
Lanthimos optioned the film rights to the book "many years ago," he told Vogue, going to Scotland to meet author Gray and learn about the relationship between the novel and the city of Glasgow. "Unfortunately," he said, "it took me a while to be able to put the film together, because at the time, I hadn’t made an English-language film. I made THE LOBSTER later, and it was a long process to prove to myself that I could make English-language films and have them do well. After the relative success of THE FAVOURITE, where I actually made a slightly more expensive film that was successful, people were more inclined to allow me to do whatever it is that I wanted, so I just went back to Gray’s book and said, “This is what I want to do.” It was a long process, but the book was always on my mind."
The Cast of Poor Things
Clearly, the star of POOR THINGS is Emma Stone, who plays Bella Baxter with the sort of fearless abandon we rarely see — maybe because actors rarely find roles that demand that kind of work.
"Even though Bella has obviously been through trauma in her life," Stone told Vogue, "it just isn’t there for her now. She was the most joyous character in the world to play, because she has no shame about anything. She’s new, you know? I’ve never had to build a character before that didn’t have things that had happened to them or had been put on them by society throughout their lives. It was an extremely freeing experience to be her."
Alongside Stone are Willem Dafoe as Dr. Godwin Baxter, the man who "makes" her, and Mark Ruffalo as Duncan Wedderburn, the man with whom Baxter has the closest thing to a relationship that we could name. Additionally, the POOR THINGS cast features Ramy Youssef, Max McCandles, Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael, and Margaret Qualley.
Willem Dafoe talked about POOR THINGS saying "it's not a normal film." When a guy like Dafoe says a movie isn't normal, you know it's time to prepare for a serious ride.
Stone and Lanthimos Have Already Made More Movies
The writer/director and producer/star have made a short string of movies together, starting with THE FAVOURITE, moving through the short film BLEAT and into POOR THINGS. But they've already got two more movies ready to go.
Lanthimos directed Stone in the mysterious movie called AND, which co-stars Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, and POOR THINGS co-star Willem Dafoe. That's literally all we know about the movie so far.
But there's another movie in the can, too! Lanthimos and Stone filmed another movie in Greece this year. The filmmaker said that it is "much simpler and very different in comparison to POOR THINGS because that story needed that particular style." All three of the new movies from the director/star pair — POOR THINGS, AND, and the unnamed mystery movie — were filmed by THE FAVOURITE cinematographer Robbie Ryan.
POOR THINGS opens on December 8.
All images courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.