50 Essential Sci-Fi Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

Scottish writer and artist Alasdair Gray’s novels are not an easy thing to adapt, and few have tried, but if anyone could do it, it was always going to be Yorgos Lanthimos. And, these days, where Yorgos Lanthimos goes, Emma Stone follows.

Poor Things gives us Stone like we’ve never seen her before, as Frankensteined woman Bella Baxter. With a young but rapidly adapting brain and a grown woman’s body, Bella escapes the confines of her creator Dr. Godwin Baxter’s (Willem Dafoe) laboratory home with the scoundrel Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) in search of freedom and physical pleasure. Travelling a weird, colourful, and Willy Wonka-adjacent world where every horizon is a vista, Bella discovers and becomes herself, while learning about poverty, socialism, and prostitution.

Lanthimos’ quirky, absurdist style fits perfectly with Gray’s, and Tony McNamara’s script keeps the story moving while eschewing the consciously literary parts of the latter’s work. Stone and Ruffalo offer career-defining turns playing opposite each other with wild abandon, and their performances are contextualised by lush, out-of-this-world visuals crafted equally by Lanthimos, DP Robbie Ryan, and the set designers. All this offers a full-sensory experience into the minds of Poor Things' creators that is, as yet, unmatched in surreal cinema.