Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is a medical marvel, a reanimated woman offered a chance to rediscover life as if for the first time, on her own rules, and her own time, in ‘Poor Things’ Credit: Photo via Searchlight Pictures

True story: Up until now, I had yet to make it all the way through a movie by acclaimed director Yorgos Lanthimos.

Not “The Lobster,” not “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” not “The Favourite.”

Some I never even started.

Why? Apparently, I’m a dummy, that’s why.

Poor Things
4.5 out of 5 stars
Now Playing

Because, what Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara have achieved with “Poor Things,” which is based on Alasdair Gray’s novel, is simply breathtaking.

And let’s put it all on the table right now. Just give the Oscar to Emma Stone. Do it. Don’t even consider another performance. Trust me.

Nothing can stack up to Stone’s wild, brave, and remarkably committed turn as Bella Baxter, a dead aristocrat whose body is resurrected by Dr. Godwin Baxter, aka God (Willem Dafoe). Bella’s response to the world as a newly-born-again vessel is studied by medical assistant Max (Ramy Youssef), and her unique beauty is coveted by notorious lothario Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo).

“Poor Things” is essentially “Frankenstein,” as filtered through a delightfully subversive feminist gaze.

Stone’s ability to capture the exuberant joy of so many first-time fleshly wonders, from eating to fucking to loving, is a thing of wonder. She be-bops across the screen like musical notes given corporeal form, awkwardly lurching at times as if still trying to figure out the mystery of legs, before spinning and swirling to her own internal rhythm.

I have all but given up on Wes Anderson, whose schtick has long overtaken his brilliance, but much of “Poor Things” plays like a demented deep-dive into a dark world that rivals the best of Anderson or Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam.

From the ensemble nature of the performers to the wonderfully warped sets, particularly a cruise liner that frames the middle act, to the ingenious creature designs for a menagerie of mad scientist creations that preceded Bella, including a duck with the body of a cat and a dog with the body of a chicken, the world of “Poor Things” is one of my absolute favorite places visited in a movie in 2023.

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