Overview
Here's one of the greatest double features that you can stream right now: Emma Stone and Greek Weird Wave director Yorgos Lanthimos teaming up on 2018's ace The Favourite, then the duo working their combined magic again in 2023's Poor Things. The best film of last year is still screening in picture palaces; however, it's also hitting Disney+ on Thursday, March 7 so that you can soak up its delights at home.
If you're wondering why this riff on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is dancing like it's never danced before into your streaming queue right now, you have the Oscars to thank. Hollywood's night of nights takes place on Monday, March 11 Down Under, with Poor Things collecting 11 nominations — coming second only to Oppenheimer. So, you can either rewatch or finally catch up with the awards contender, which is up for the big gongs such as Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress for Stone and Best Supporting Actor for Mark Ruffalo.
Poor Things is also in the running for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score and Best Production Design. Even if it doesn't emerge victorious in all or even most fields, it's going to get plenty of attention at the Oscars whenever these categories come up.
Poor Things doesn't actually use the f-word — Frankenstein, that is — but Stone is clearly playing a version of Frankenstein's monster. The film adapts Alasdair Grey's 1992 award-winning novel, with the parallels with Shelley's mother-of-all horror greats as obvious as a bolt of lightning. The focus: Bella Baxter, a woman resurrected by an unorthodox scientist, distinctive in her mannerisms afterwards and eager to learn about a world that isn't quite sure how to react.
Continuing the movie's top-notch casting — and Lanthimos' in general, as seen in everything from Dogtooth and Alps to The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer as well — Poor Things boasts Willem Dafoe (Asteroid City) as the tinkering Dr Godwin Baxter; Ruffalo (She-Hulk: Attorney at Law) as Duncan Wedderburn, a slick lawyer that Bella runs off with; and also Ramy's Ramy Youssef, plus On the Count of Three co-stars Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott.
It features just one of Stone's two stunning 2023 performances, too, with the end of the year seeing her turn in exceptional work in both this and TV's The Curse. She'd been away from the screen for a short stint beforehand; Cruella released in 2021, and only The Croods: A New Age, Zombieland: Double Tap and TV's Maniac also sat on her resume after The Favourite.
Check out the full trailer for Poor Things below:
Poor Things is still showing in cinemas, and streams via Disney+ from Thursday, March 7. Read our review.
Images: courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.