"I am finding being alive fascinating."
Three-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster and The Favourite) puts an idiosyncratic spin on the story of Frankenstein's monster in Poor Things, a Victorian fantasy in which Emma Stone (herself a three-time Oscar nominee who won Best Actress for her performance in La La Land) plays a young woman brought back to life and unleashed upon the world.
This marks the director and star's third collaboration following 2018's The Favourite and the 2022 short film Bleat, with two more forthcoming: Stone stars in Lanthimos' next film, AND, and the two have already shot a secret fifth film together. Lanthimos directs Poor Things from a script by The Favourite's Tony McNamara, with Stone serving as a producer this go-around.
In Poor Things, Bella Baxter (Stone) is reanimated by a mad scientist, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Newly re-alive, Bella runs off with the debauched Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) to discover her purpose in life, along the way meeting a color cast of characters played by Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, and Margaret Qualley.
Poor Things premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion, and opens in theaters on Dec. 8. Watch the trailer below.
Searchlight Pictures also released an extended look trailer in which Stone says, "I wanted to play Bella because it felt like acceptance of what it is to be a woman, to be free, to be scared and brave."
This article was originally published on June 8, 2023.
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