X
In Theaters Now
- 2023
- R
- 2 h 21 m
- 2023
- R
- 2 h 21 m
Summary Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across th...
Directed By: Yorgos Lanthimos
Written By: Tony McNamara, Alasdair Gray
In Theaters Now
- 2023
- R
- 2 h 21 m
- 2023
- R
- 2 h 21 m
Poor Things
7.8
Where to Watch
Summary Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across th...
Directed By: Yorgos Lanthimos
Written By: Tony McNamara, Alasdair Gray
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 57 Critic Reviews
86
93% Positive
53 Reviews
53 Reviews
4% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
4% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 57 Critic Reviews
86
93% Positive
53 Reviews
53 Reviews
4% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
4% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Poor Things is like nothing else you’ve seen this year: A darkly comic satire set in a dazzlingly designed steampunk world. It plays like it’s for fun, but is built around a deep philosophical core, that is ultimately about living authentically.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 88 User Ratings
7.8
78% Positive
69 Ratings
69 Ratings
6% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
16% Negative
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 88 User Ratings
7.8
78% Positive
69 Ratings
69 Ratings
6% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
16% Negative
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
Very cool Frankenstein movie, visual style reminded me "The Lighthouse" (2019). Can't wait for the Blu-Ray, hopefully it releases early 2024 (March-April?). I rarely buy movies on Blu-Ray anymore, because most modern movies just **** or are mediocre at best, but this one is Day 1 buy for me, absolutely worth it. Last Blu-Ray i bought was "Oppenheimer" (2023).
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Modern masterpiece! Only people who hate it, are those same people who hate GTA 6 trailer/want to ban the game and far-left feminists and both of them hate it for the same reason- Nudity. This movie is direct threat to their ultra conservative or ultra-feminist lifestyle (same with GTA 6) and they can't take it. In simpler words, people who hate this movie are extremes of either far-right or far-left. Normal people, who usually don't care about politics, should like this movie just fine.
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As with Lanthimos’ previous films, Poor Things never allows viewers to get too comfortable or too acclimated to their surroundings; it’s a film that’s constantly throwing set pieces and absurdist humor and over-the-top outfits at the audience, but the effect is exhilarating rather than enervating.
It is a deliciously amoral journey, the kind that has already secured Lanthimos ample praise over the course of his career. But this is perhaps the filmmaker’s most garish and confident endeavor, using Bella’s naive perspective to design a world so heightened that it exists somewhere between a nightmare and a dream.
Because McNamara wrote the script, Poor Things brims with his signature polished, sophisticated humor; because Lanthimos directed, it’s full of envelope-pushing zaniness and self-amusement, especially when it comes to Bella’s increasingly uninhibited sexual appetites.
This freaky fairy-tale world is really a playground for Stone, whose willingness to be foolish and risky is a breath of fresh air amid all the polite Oscar-bait turns we’re handed this time of year.
The verdict is sad but unavoidable. Poor Things is a 141-minute mistake.
PLEASE WATCH THIS MOVIE IN CINEMA, if you actually care about future of movies. If this movie fails financially, then it's pretty much last time producers are willing to take risks like this. If this movie fails, then all you gonna get for next 10-20 years are Disney garbage, generic action movies and political agenda movies. That's it. Then it's over. This movie is extremely, extremely important for so so so many reasons. It's artistic, it's wild, it has more sex and nudity than most mainstream movies have ever had and it has one of the best actresses of all time- Emma Stone, this movie is unique, it takes risks that most films would NEVER take and it's just so different from all the average crap that Hollywood is making endlessly. Please don't let this movie fail. This is one of these few movies, that will be looked back at in 100-200 years and praised for it's willingness to take risks in a time, where almost every movie feels the same. Emma Stone literally made history with this movie and now it's up to audiences to either prove that they care for something like this or they just want another "The Marvels" every year. Radical feminists are already trying to celebrate, that this movie failed, because they absolutely hate this movie, because apparently "sex and nudity bad". So far this movie has made only 2.2 million, but it's not even gone wide yet, it's still in limited theaters. So there's still a chance to show that you care. To show you want more movies like this. Because if this movie fails, then it's officially over. Then enjoy your yearly Disney crap for next 10 years.
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I can’t give this movie a review in the green despite its many strengths. I felt held hostage by “Poor Things,” and like someone was sticking a probe in my brain to wiggle it around until I made an involuntary movement. It’s a cinematic experiment on the audience held by a director who dares to stick your face right in it, shocking you again and again like electrodes to the brain while taking perhaps a maniacal joy in making the characters and audience uncomfortable. It felt all too appropriate that as I left the theater there was someone handing out surveys to see what we thought of the film. My opinion is that the experiment could have lost about 30 minutes. However I’d be remiss to say there is not a medicinal quality to having one’s brain repeatedly shocked with electricity. I just can’t recommend it to the whole family.
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A deceased woman (Emma Stone) is brought back to life by a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe) through having her brain zapped. From there, she begins to experience life and the world around her once again through great wonder as she rediscovers high society, sex, and many other things along the way. Directed in typical absurdist fashion by Yorgos Lanthimos.('The Lobster', 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer', and 'The Favourite'), I was quite looking forward to this one, being quite a fan of his style and previous films. However, the film's disjointed and scattershot narrative structure and approach in the first third or so was an early bad sign for me, and while things did seem to pick up a little in the second act, it all culminated in a half-assed and jumbled mess of a third and final act. What's more, the dark humor here is more miss than hit, with only a truly genuine laugh or two out of me for the nearly two and a half hour runtime. The story feels wandering and aimless, much like most of the film's characters, and random subplots and characters are introduced seemingly out of nowhere in various spots, particularly towards the end. As if all that wasn't enough, I found myself quickly exasperated with the near-constant sleazy sex scenes throughout that squandered quite a bit of Stone's talent and dignity. I will say that aside from those scenes, her performance is the film's biggest highlight, along with that of Mark Ruffalo's as a charming yet bumbling suitor who tags along with Stone's character and her misadventures. Stone's commitment and physicality in particular here is quite notable and admirable, and she'll no doubt be in contention at the coming Oscars later this new year. I will also say how visually and aesthetically unique the film appears as well, with a distorted and eye-popping surreal world that often tried to distract me from the heavily disjointed and clumsy narrative, but to not much avail. In the end, it was clear to me that this film was much more style over substance, tried as it did to be the reverse of that. Overall, a wandering and aimless narrative with no clear sense of plot or direction, a visually pleasing world accompanied by a rather whimsical musical score that, paired together with the production design, tries its damnedest to come off as a slightly darker and more absurd Wes Anderson fare, and enough sleazy sex to almost make you want to look away in shame and disgust. Sadly, not even the committed performances from the brilliant cast can save this one from being anything more than halfway decent. That's all it really amounts to.
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So much potential and talent wasted on exploitative, self-satisfied, counterproductive and overdrawn content. I really wanted to love it, as I really appreciate other works from the director, so this is sad. The beauty and technicality are not enough as there is no interesting story, aside from a basic male fantasy of a woman's gluttony, hedonism and physical hunger as liberation and self-discovery. It could be fine if it did not pretend to be something deeper and meaningful.
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Shocked at the high ratings for this. I thought it was pretty bad. Some people just get taken in/think they are watching something good because it has shock value, I guess.
Overall, it's extremely one-track, overlong,boring, and not as funny as it thinks it is. The shock factor was just gross--did not add to the movie as it did in say, Saltburn (which is a much better film).
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Production Company
Element Pictures,
Film4,
Searchlight Pictures,
TSG Entertainment
Release Date Dec 8, 2023
Duration 2 h 21 m
Rating R
Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 7 Nominations
Critics Choice Awards
• 13 Nominations
Indiana Film Journalists Association, US
• 7 Wins & 12 Nominations
