Terry Hunter reviews POOR THINGS

Updated: Dec. 31, 2023 at 5:12 PM HST
Email This Link
Share on Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn
Emma Stone won the Best Actress Oscar for LA LA LAND six years ago. And she’s likely to get an Oscar nomination this year for her performance in POOR THINGS, a very weird black comedy directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (THE LOBSTER, THE FAVOURITE). In Victorian England, a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe) reanimates the body of a pregnant woman who committed suicide. But first he replaces her brain with the brain of her unborn child. Emma Stone is sensational in the role of Bella, an infant in a woman’s body whose motor skills and intelligence develop quickly. Men often take advantage of her naïveté, but that naïveté also allows her to be delightfully unconventional. POOR THINGS is worth seeing you can tolerate Bella’s bizarre and sometimes unsavory misadventures. Mark Ruffalo co-stars. (In theaters)