Poor Things

Keswick Film has had a knack of picking the Oscar films before the date; well, 'Poor Things' is giving off the vibes already as we write this, so it might well be very hot by the time you see it in February. The latest from the strangely brilliant director Yorgos Lanthimos (Best Director Award?), it stars Emma Stone (Best Actress Award?) as Bella, the 'Frankengirl' brought back to life by Doctor Baxter (Willem Defoe). Rather than becoming a monster, however, Bella gets more and more complete as she discovers first how to move and talk, then the pleasures of the flesh (with sleazy, caddish Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo - Best Actor Award?)). But to Wedderburn's disgust, she then turns to reading and before you know it, she is out-thinking and outsmarting the men.

"Poor Things is a defiantly strange film, a movie that obviously echoes Shelley's Frankenstein, but it's more about liberation than the folly of playing God. With the possible exception of the warmth that Dafoe surprisingly brings his mad scientist, the men in 'Poor Things' are uniformly awful, faux intellectuals who hold power over Bella purely because of gender and society. Through each episodic development in the script by Tony McNamara ('The Favourite') from the book by Alasdair Gray, Bella becomes more self-aware and confident" - Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com.

The film and, especially, Emma Stone get great reviews inspiring, for instance, Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian to rave "Everything in it – every frame, every image, every joke, every performance – gets a gasp of excitement… And his leading lady is someone who takes it to the next career level, or the level beyond the next level".

Put this one in your diary now!