11 Oscar nominations: A review of 'Poor Things'
At A Glance
- Poor Things carries noms for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Emma Stone), Best Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo), Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Film Editing.
In what must be seen as something of a surprise, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things romped away with 11 Oscar nominations. This makes it the film with the second-highest number of nominations this year, only bested by Oppenheimer with 13. And let’s face it, observers were all talking of Oppenheimer, Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon, and perhaps Maestro as the big-budget films that would dominate these upcoming Oscars.
Instead, it’s Lanthimos’ feminist retelling of the Frankenstein tale that eclipses them all, except for Oppenheimer. Poor Things carries noms for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Emma Stone), Best Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo), Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Film Editing.
The film already has a glittering career; it won the Golden Lion at the 2023 Venice Film Festival and picked up Golden Globes for Best Film and Best Actress, to name a few. Lanthimos had his Greek film, Dogtooth, nominated for Best Foreign Film in 2011 and has previously directed three highly regarded English language films - The Lobster, The Killing of the Sacred Deer, and The Favourite (Best Actress Oscar for Olivia Colman, with Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz co-starring).
I had the wonderful opportunity to catch Poor Things when it opened QCinema late last year. I’m excited to announce that it’ll be released in cinemas with a generous R-16 MTRCB rating on Feb. 14, 2024. I watched it for the second time last week, and I’m happy to say it holds up!
Somebody with a bizarre sense of humor has made this film become a Valentine’s Day gift, and I’m all for that as it’s a film that will offend the sensibilities of many. When it was shown during the QCinema festival, Mayor Joy Belmonte recounted how some people went up to her after the screening, complaining that she had allowed soft core pornography into the Festival - and I laughed over that rather extreme reaction.
Based on the 1992 novel by Scotsman Alasdair Gray I had read It back then, it was already a crazy book of ideas and strong social commentary. It discussed identity, gender discrimination, and defining relationships and family/paternity. A good section of the novel revolves around the life of Bella Baxter, as recounted by her husband, a fellow doctor to Bella’s ‘creator/father/God.’ Bella's section is unique to the novel and completely excised from the film, where she refutes and dismisses everything her husband wrote as gothic fantasy. This is a good choice, as it simplifies and strengthens the storytelling.
I reviewed the film after the QCinema screening, so this is more of an exhortation to cinephiles and movie lovers to troop to the cinemas and support films such as Poor Things. We complain about how quality artistic films never make it here and how we’re limited to superhero blockbusters, horror films, and family entertainment. This is the chance to prove to film promoters that movies such as Poor Things can do good at the box office.
It is a film that challenges what we have between our ears to make sense of Bella’s journey to unravel the possibilities of what lies between her legs. It’s Frankenstein’s monster if the monster was an attractive woman. Emma Stone gives the performance of a lifetime - with an arc that takes her from the brain of an infant in a grown woman to one who rapidly reaches adolescence and maturity in a matter of days. Ruffalo is entertaining as the cad who would take advantage of Bella, while Willem Dafoe is Dr. Baxter, the creator of Bella.
The cinematography would best be described as an Impressionist painting, and the set and costume designs are all top-notch. The musical score is dissonant and ‘noise’, but it is created with strong purpose and works in tandem with the narrative.
So yes, it deserves all 11 nominations. It is the Best Film of 2023 if you’re asking for originality, creativity, and a movie with humor, humanity, compassion, and social commentary.