Emma Stone Makes a Stunning Frankenstein's Monster in the New Trailer for Yorgos Lanthimos' 'Poor Things'
You haven't seen a riff on Mary Shelley's gothic-horror classic like this before.
The last time that Emma Stone made a movie with Greek Weird Wave director Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018's excellent The Favourite was the end result. The Cruella star earned an Oscar nomination for her troubles, deservedly so, and the filmmaker's style and sense of humour gained a wider audience. Indeed, the made a winning pair, in what was one of the former's very best performances of Stone's career. Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that they've reteamed again.
Also far from astonishing: that another unique movie looks set to hit screens. This time, they've traded regal dramas for a riff on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein — which will never stop being a gothic-horror masterpiece, or inspiring stories across the page, stage and screen. And, while Poor Things doesn't actually use that f-word, it looks mesmerising, eerie and stunning in both its initial and just-dropped trailers. Also, Stone is clearly playing a version of Frankenstein's monster.
Poor Things adapts Alasdair Grey's 1992 award-winning novel, but the parallels with Shelley's mother-of-all horror greats are 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 features Willem Dafoe (The Northman) as the tinkering Dr Godwin Baxter; Mark 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.
Poor Things jolts Stone's career back onto the screen a few years away, too — Cruella released in 2021, and only The Croods: A New Age, Zombieland: Double Tap and TV's Maniac sit on her resume since The Favourite.
Viewers Down Under will get to see how this surreal-looking take on a literary masterpiece turns out on October 12.
Check out the full trailer for Poor Things below:
Poor Things will release in cinemas Down Under on October 12.
Image: Yorgos Lanthimos. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.
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