Poor Things (2023)

Poor Things is the kind of audacious, one-of-a-kind cinema that feels like it was dreamed up in a fever and then crafted with meticulous beauty—part sci‑fi fantasia, part romantic misadventure, part wicked social comedy. Yorgos Lanthimos builds a world that’s at once grotesque and gorgeous, where every frame has the punchline of a cartoon and the texture of a painting, and the film’s strange logic becomes its own intoxicating rhythm. At the center, Emma Stone delivers a fearless, hilarious, and deeply human performance, turning Bella’s awakening into something both uproariously entertaining and quietly liberating. It’s not for viewers who want straightforward realism or a gentle tone, but if you’re open to bold imagination and big ideas wrapped in gleeful absurdity, this is a must-see.

Poor Things is clearly aiming for a bold, surreal feminist fable—part mad-science fairy tale, part romantic misadventure—with Yorgos Lanthimos leaning hard into weirdness, satire, and visual extravagance. If you’re not on board with his deliberately off-kilter tone, the film can feel long and structurally meandering, with big ideas that some viewers will find more loudly stated than deeply explored. It also isn’t shy about provocation, and the sexuality/body humor can come off as gratuitous or simply in poor taste depending on your tolerance for that kind of shocky art-house edge. On the plus side, Emma Stone commits fully, the world-building is striking, and if you enjoy stylized, “what did I just watch?” cinema, you may find it thrilling rather than exhausting.