The Emperor has no clothes. Neither does Emma Stone as she saunters around from a newborn babe to a hot babe exploring her sexual awakenings as a nubile maiden without any hangups. Bella (Emma Stone) is brought to life in a Frankenstein appropriated plot. Godwin (Willem Dafoe) is the skilled but deranged surgeon/mad scientist who retrieves a woman's body from the canal immediately after she leapt to her death. Back in his laboratory, Godwin removes the fetus from the pregnant corpse and the brain from the fetus which he implants into the woman's body and then brings the body to life. Godwin names the woman Bella (Emma Stone) and raises her from a nascent incarnation through her excelled maturation from infancy, through childhood, into young adulthood. While Frankenstein was naive to the ways of mankind, Shelly spares us the tedium of watching the man made monster struggle as if an infant or developing through puberty and growing sexual awakenings. POOR THINGS is purely off-putting in its focus on Emma's self-discovery of the pleasures of masturbation and fornication. This is not clever or daring movie making. It's cringeworthy, droll and a poor excuse for witty social commentary. Bella willingly runs off with the near-do-well gigolo played by Mark Ruffalo. The art direction is a fantastical kaleidoscope somewhere between Alice Through the Looking Glass, a morass Salvador Dali painting and 19th C Europe. The bewitching cinematography attempts to divert one's attention from the patchwork of assembled scenes that are as disjointed as Godwin's hackneyed face. Director Yorgos Lanthimos ("The Lobster") is known for bizarre plots with biting social commentary. However, an uninhibited woman discovering what gives her pleasure sexually and otherwise is neither a revelatory, shocking or clever mocking of social norms. POOR THINGS is schlocky even with its trifecta of talented actors: Stone, Ruffalo and Dafoe. None of whom deserve all the accolades they've earned. Could the public be swept up by propaganda and led to believe the film is incredible because the movie borders on being terrible. Who's afraid to say the Emperor and Emma are butt naked but this alone does not make for great movie making except me?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Don't be shy, let me know what you think