The young woman Bella Baxter (Stone) is brought back to life by scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Wanting to see more of the world, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, and travels across continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella demands equality and liberation.
The teaser gives us glimpses of all those characters, not to mention supporting roles from Ramy Youssef and Jerrod Carmichael, but the film overall seems to belong to Stone and Ruffalo, whose delivery of the word “ow” in the footage below really has to be heard to be fully appreciated. Visually, Poor Things looks absolutely sumptuous, with a heavily stylized and surreal style of production design that evokes the mind-bending imagery of Terry Gilliam or Jean-Pierre Jeunet in films such as The City of Lost Children. Lanthimos’ films such as The Lobster have often dealt with the ethical trappings of fantastical premises–such as a man being forced to find a mate, lest he be turned into a lobster–but rarely have they been rendered with visuals this imaginative and expressionistic. It really feels like the director is stretching into all new visual territory here, as if he just finished a Michel Gondry movie marathon and thought “I’d like to try that for myself.”
Poor Things is adapted from the 1992 novel by Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, and is set to hit theaters on Sept. 8, 2023. Check out the short, engrossing first footage below.
