POOR THINGS

This film, the latest collaboration by director Yorgos Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara, who worked together on 'The Favourite', is a weird and wonderful thing which defies description.

It's a fantasy owing a little to 'Frankenstein' and maybe also to 'Pygmalion' in that its starting point is the creation of a woman Bella (played memorably by Emma Stone) who to begin with has the brain of a child and therefore has to be taught the ways of polite society.  Willem Dafoe is well cast as her creator and all-round mad scientist.

Some of the grotesque and absurd elements of the fantasy world presented here reminded me of Tim Burton's work, whilst its hermetic nature brought to mind Wes Anderson.

Since I'm not a great fan of either of those directors, or of the fantasy genre, I was surprised to find myself enjoying this. 

It certainly helps that there's a lot of humour in the screenplay, stemming in part from Bella's direct and unfiltered way of describing both her feelings and her observations of society.

Then there's the earthiness of her enjoyment of sex. 

This film has an interesting (and possibly liberating) attitude towards female sexuality, in that it suggests that (shock horror) women might enjoy sex and shouldn't feel uncomfortable about acknowledging the fact.

The film seems designed to make us ask questions about what women get out of sex, and in what ways men try to control this.

Where this gets problematic are the scenes of Bella in a Parisian brothel which are unrealistic in that a normal woman would find a lot of her experiences there unpleasant and degrading, whereas she just seems to regard them as useful additions to her knowledge of the world. 

Also in the debit column: I couldn't get very interested in Bella's relationship with boring Max, and I felt Mark Ruffalo was miscast and not that funny.

Finally, a big shout-out to the visual design which is really something else, and definitely a good reason to seek out this film. 

RATING: ✓ Cheers