Poor Things: A Review - A Funny and Fantastic Feminist Frankenstein

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An original and brilliantly eviscerating black comedy that features the best performance by an actress in recent memory.

Poor Things, the new film from director Yorgos Lanthimos and writer Tony McNamara, is a bizarre and beautiful, weird and wonderful, gruesome and glorious piece of cinema, and is among the very best movies of the year.

The film is a surreal, absurdist, feminist take on the Frankenstein myth, which stars Emma Stone as Bella, a beautiful and horny Frankenstein monster who is raised by her creator God (short for Godfrey – played by Willem Dafoe), and then goes on an odyssey of personal, sexual and ideological discovery when adolescence hits.

On her journey Bella is armed with a powerful naivete, an aggressive resistance to social customs, a sharp scientific mind and an insatiable sexual appetite…all of which lead to a plethora of comedy.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ films are definitely an acquired taste…and I have certainly acquired it. The first Lanthimos film I saw was 2015’s The Lobster, which starred Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz. The film is an absurdist romantic black comedy, a true arthouse gem, and I adored it. But when I talked it over with friends of mine, they hated it with a visceral passion. I guess they didn’t get it…or worse they did get it.

Lanthimos’ follow-up film, 2017’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, was another strange arthouse psychological thriller starring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, but which I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve yet to meet anyone else who saw the film never mind felt the same way.

Lanthimos’ next film, 2018’s The Favourite, was a period black comedy which starred Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman, and garnered a lot of attention and Oscar nominations. This was easily Lanthimos’ most mainstream and successful film, it too was funny but also very, very dark. Not surprisingly, I loved it.

Poor Things is more in line with The Favourite than with The Lobster, as it’s a bitter and black comedy, but it’s also broad enough to appeal to slightly wider audiences than just the arthouse…although to be clear, at its heart the movie is an oddball arthouse affair.

What is so interesting about Poor Things coming out this year is that it is an elegant and searing indictment against this summer’s blockbuster event Barbie, and is the coup de grace in the case against the overwrought argument that Barbie is quality cinema.

Poor Things is everything the banal Barbie and its simpleton sycophants claim it to be but isn’t. Poor Things is original, funny, smart, clever and unabashedly and undeniably subversive. Where Barbie is insipid, Poor Things is inspired. Where Barbie is trite, Poor Things is treacherous.

Like Barbie, Poor Things is fueled by feminism but it isn’t the insipid, Human Resources approved, freshman year gender studies feminism of Greta Gerwig’s billion-dollar, two-hour Mattel commercial.

Barbie’s feminism was nothing more than a blunt instrument used to bash men and raise a self-pitying pink flag of victimhood for women. Poor Things’ feminism is a pitiless, merciless wildfire that scorches everything in its path, be it men or women, capitalism or socialism.  

Everything about Poor Things is superior to Barbie, from the directing to the writing to the cinematography to the acting.

The script, written by Tony McNamara, is razor sharp, cutting and insightful. McNamara, who also wrote The Favourite and is the creator of the fantastic tv series The Great, writes with a wonderfully incisive wit and maintains a consistent pace and tone.

The beneficiaries of McNamara’s phenomenal script are the cast.

Emma Stone gives the greatest performance by an actress seen this century. Stone, who already has a Best Actress Oscar for La La Land, is far and away the best actress in movies (or anywhere else) this year…this of course doesn’t mean she’ll win the Academy Award again, just that she should.

Stone dives into the Bella character with copious amounts of bravado and skill. She bares her body and devours scenes with equal aplomb. Watching Stone expertly act like a toddler, then like a horny teenager and then a wide-eyed whore, is glorious to behold.

As cliché as it is to say, Emma Stone gives a masterclass in acting in this film without ever making you feel like you’re watching her act. The dance scene alone is worth the price of admission.

Willem Dafoe too does extraordinary work as the mutilated mutilator Godfrey. Dafoe, beneath a bevy of prosthetics, gives Godfrey a humanity – in all its glories and failures, that never rings hollow.

The few missteps in the cast come from Mark Ruffalo, who plays Duncan Wedderburn, a cad who becomes enamored with Bella, and Jerrod Carmicheal as harry, an intellectual.

Ruffalo is miscast, and gives a very mannered performance that is at times uncomfortable to watch. Ruffalo is trying to be funny and it is this desire that suffocates the humor of his character.

Ruffalo also tries to speak in a very specific way and his mouth seems unwilling or incapable of cooperating with his brain’s instructions. The result is a muddled, mush-mouth performance that the film must fight to overcome…and thankfully, successfully does.

Carmichael, who is a comedian by trade, just seems to be a bad actor as he loiters in every scene he barely inhabits. He never adequately grasps the dialogue he is tasked with speaking and feels entirely out of place in the film.

Poor Things is, unlike its summertime counterpart Barbie, beautifully shot. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan is given a lot to play with and he makes the most of it. His use of black and white, and then a glorious cornucopia and dream like colors, is exquisite, and is substantially better than the flat visuals of Barbieland.

The production design, costume design and hair and make-up are all also extraordinarily well-done, and Robbie Ryan’s photography only accentuates the brilliance of the artists who created all of it.  

Poor Things is nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay (McNamara), Best Actress (Stone), Best Supporting Actor (Ruffalo) and Best Cinematographer (Ryan). How many, if any, it will win remains to be seen but I will say this, if it wins them all I certainly won’t be angry about it.

That said, Poor Things is not for everyone. It’s a decidedly dark comedy and it features a plethora of nudity and sex…so if you have a puritan or Victorian taste and those things make you uncomfortable then I recommend you stay away. But if you have a cynical sense of humor and you can at least tolerate the nudity and sex and the arthouse weirdness of it all, then Poor Things is definitely worth a try as it’s an exquisite piece of cinema.

Follow me on Twitter: MPMActingCo

©2024

The Menu: A Review - A Deliciously Dark Comedy/Horror Experience

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A clever, entertaining and darkly comedic swipe at foodie culture that is buoyed by solid performances.

A lot of people seem to love the Knives Out movies and often describe the reason for doing so being that the movies are “fun”. These people of course are unrepentant philistines and incorrigible buffoons as both Knives Out movies are utterly appalling and are the antithesis of entertaining.

The Menu on the other hand, is exactly what the Knives Out movies should be but aren’t, as it’s clever, funny, dark and above all else, entertaining.

The Menu, which is currently streaming on HBO Max and is still playing in some theatres, stars Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor Joy and chronicles a collection of rich assholes and food snobs as they shell out big bucks to attend an exclusive restaurant on a secluded private island operated by celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Fiennes).

The prestigious dining experience is limited to just 11 people, and they are all sinners in one form or another. There are the three-frat boy/hedge fund crooks, the rich couple with the philandering husband, the narcissistic faded movie star (John Leguizamo) and his assistant, the big-time food critic (Janet McTeer) and her sycophantic editor (Paul Adelstein), and finally devout foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his last-minute date Margot (Anya Taylor Joy).

Julian Slowik is less a chef than a cult leader, and his staff, most notably his maître d’ Elsa (Hong Chau) are a militant group committed to obeying his each and every command. On this particular night Chef Slowik, who despises both the uncouth and the too couth, has the ultimate menu prepared for his unsuspecting guests.

I’ll refrain from going any further in describing the plot but I will say that The Menu is sort of a comedy/horror/thriller that skewers foodie culture and keeps you guessing, and intrigued, from the get go.

The comparison to the most recent Knives Out movie Glass Onion, is obvious since the film begins with a group of pretty insufferable people going to a private island for a special dinner and then a whole bunch of stuff is revealed.

The difference between the two movies though is that The Menu is better crafted and considerably more effective due to a far superior script, direction and most of all, performances.

Anya Taylor Joy plays Margot, the protagonist of the story, and she is simply a very charismatic and magnetic screen presence. The luminous Taylor Joy knows how to fill a screen (despite the fact that she appears to have never eaten a cheeseburger in her life – which is a joke you’ll get once you see the movie) and how to tell a story with just a simple glance.

Taylor-Joy is aided by the sublime Nicholas Hoult. Hoult, who is absolutely spectacular on the Hulu series The Great, once again sparkles in The Menu as the dedicated, die-hard foodie. Hoult’s commitment to his comedy is unwavering, and he never winks at the camera and lets you know he’s in on the joke.

Ralph Fiennes has long been a superb actor, but in recent years he’s transitioned to roles in more broad-based movies, and The Menu fits him to a tee. Fiennes’ Chef is an artistic avenging angel, filled with copious amounts of self-righteousness and self-pity.

Janet McTeer, who was so good on Netflix’s Ozark, is terrific as the pompous, know-it-all food critic, and Paul Adelstein is a subtle scene stealer as her ass-kissing editor.

Usually when a movie features John Leguizamo, one of the worst and most annoying actors of his or any other generation, I either refuse to watch it or am resigned to hating it. The Menu is the lone exception because it uses Leguizamo’s repugnance as a feature not a bug by casting him as an annoying, has-been actor.

The Menu, which is written by Will Tracy and Seth Reiss and directed by Mark Mylod, isn’t a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination, but for what it is, it’s mostly well-done.

For example, the movie’s premise is very clever and its politics are clear but never heavy-handed, and to its great credit it never becomes self-indulgent are self-aware, which makes it devoid of preachiness and results in a rather enjoyable viewing experience.

The best part of the movie is that, unlike the Knives Out movies, it earns almost all of its moments, and never insults the intelligence of its audience because it takes its premise and its plot seriously and never diverges from that. There is a scene, in fact, where any questions about the reality and veracity of the scenario playing out in front of viewers is directly addressed, and it’s very smart.

Mark Mylod has mostly directed TV prior to The Menu, as his credits include a bevy of Shameless, Succession and Game of Thrones episodes. His direction on The Menu is solid but not spectacular, and he gets the job done with minimal flair.

While The Menu has some plot points that don’t quite work, and some characters that aren’t totally fully formed, and some performances that could maybe have used better actors (I’m mostly thinking about Reed Birney’s role of Richard – the cheating husband), overall, the film works as a compelling and amusing piece of entertainment.

If you’re looking for dark fun and some laughs at the expense of pretentious foodie culture and the uber-rich, then The Menu will be a tasty and very satisfying meal, I recommend you dig right in.

©2023