Emma Stone's Astonishing Performance in 'Poor Things': A Smart and Bonkers Feminist Monster Mash

"Poor Things," directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is a visually sumptuous and clever film that offers a phantasmagoric take on the classic Frankenstein story. The movie follows Bella, a strange Victorian woman with a childish temperament, and her eccentric guardian, Dr. Godwin Baxter. Bella's reanimated existence is revealed to be the result of a brain transplant. As Bella's fortunes change, she embarks on an episodic adventure, encountering suitors and expanding her horizons. While the film's design is rich and the performances by Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe are precise, the movie's focus on showy minutiae and strained eccentricity becomes bludgeoning, resulting in a self-satisfied and monotonous experience.