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In 2023, we’ll get to see a lot of exciting new movies from well-known directors like Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, and Greta Gerwig. Also coming out this year is Yorgos Lanthimos’s next film, Poor Things (2023), is a gothic science fiction romance. Lanthimos is one of the most thought-provoking filmmakers of the last ten years. He has made a name for himself with films like The Killing of the Sacred Deer, which is very psychologically complex, and The Lobster, which looks at how people connect and how lonely they can be. But his 2018 period drama The Favourite got the most praise and success of his career. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and Olivia Colman won her first Oscar for the role of Queen Anne.
The movie Poor Things is based on Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name, which won the Costa Book Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. It is the story of a woman whose identity and memories are unclear, who gets caught up in a Victorian-era gothic romance with ties to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos are also working on this project together. Stone plays the lead role for the second time in this strange period piece after working with Colman in The Favourite.
Cast
- Emma Stone as Bella Baxter
- Margaret Qualley as Felicity
- Willem Dafoe as Dr. Godwin Baxter
- Mark Ruffalo as Duncan Wedderburn
- Charlie Hiscock as Fop #2
- Kathryn Hunter as Swiney
- Ramy Youssef as Max McCandless
- Jerrod Carmichael as Harry Astley
- Damien Bonnard as Father
- Jeremy Wheeler as Ship Officer
- Vivienne Soan as Duchess
- Roderick Hill as Man in Park
Poor Things Release Date
Poor Things is set to come out in theaters all over the United States on September 8, 2023, in the early fall. Searchlight Pictures will distribute it. The movie got an “R” rating because it has a lot of sexual content, blood, and other disturbing things. At the moment, Warner Bros.’s The Nun 2 and Focus Features’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 are set to come out in theaters on the same weekend. Before going wide in theaters across the country, Poor Things will also likely debut at a big film festival like the Venice Film Festival or the Telluride Film Festival.
Is There a Trailer for Poor Things?
On May 11, 2023, a thirty-second teaser was shown to the public. There are a lot of strange images and fish-eye lens shots in the trailer, and Emma Stone dances, eats, and smacks Mark Ruffalo in the face.
On April 28, 2023, the first images from the movie were released, and you can see them here. The pictures give us our first look at Emma Stone, Ramy Youssef, and Willem Dafoe’s characters, as well as our first look at the dreamy world of Poor Things. In a colorful world where everything looks a little too strange, the pictures combine the gothic look of dread with a fairy-tale-like fantasy. Here’s an example:
In the first picture, Emma Stone wears a yellow dress, and her long, jet-black hair is pulled back straight. Her skin and eyes have an unnatural glow. From the edges of Emma Stone’s profile, we also get a quick look at Ramy Youssef in a Victorian hat and suit. Stone looks the same in the second picture, which shows him lying on a folded bed with a stormy sky and sea in the background. The last picture looks the most like Frankenstein, and it’s the first time we see Willem Dafoe. He’s sitting in a room that looks like a gothic laboratory, with some impressive prosthetics on his face.
What’s the Plot of Poor Things?
Poor Things is a new version of Frankenstein. It tells the story of Bella Baxter, a young woman who dies tragically but is brought back to life by a genius mad scientist named Dr. Godwin Baxter with an infant’s brain. Bella doesn’t know who she is or what’s happening around her. With help from Dr. Godwin, she tries to figure out how to live again. But she can’t help but feel trapped and lost, so she runs away with a shady lawyer named Duncan Wedderburn on an adventure from another world. Through her journey through the different shapes and prejudices of the time, Bella changes and looks for answers to be free.
The novel comprises evidence and writings from several unreliable narrators, who all have different stories and points of view about what happened. One of the unreliable narrators is the author Alasdair Gray, who acts as an editor of the text. It will be interesting to see how this structure works in a movie. The novel looks at identity, social inequality, feminism, human relationships, and memory through a darkly funny lens, combining historical events and different genres.
Who is the Director of Poor Things?
The script was written by Tony McNamara, who also registered The Favourite. Yorgos Lanthimos is in charge of the movie. Lanthimos first became known worldwide with his festival hit Dogtooth in 2009. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best International Picture, and Lanthimos has been nominated for an Oscar thrice since then. Robbie Ryan, a well-known cinematographer whose recent films include “C’mon, C’mon” and “Marriage Story,” and Yorgos Mavropsaridis, a well-known editor who has worked on all of Lanthimos’ films, will also work with him again. Lanthimos, Ed Guiney, Ali Herting, Andrew Lowe, Dave McCary, and Emma Stone are the producers of Poor Things. Ildiko Kemeny, Kasia Malipan, and David Minkowski are the co-producers, and Mónika Nagy is the line producer.
