Could Oscar winner Emma Stone (La La Land) be back in the Oscar hunt with Searchlight Pictures’ Poor Things? According to critics who’ve caught festival screenings, the answer is a resounding yes.
“From filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Emma Stone comes the incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents,” reads Searchlight Pictures’ synopsis. “Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.”
The film marks the second feature film collaboration between director Yorgos Lanthimos and actor Emma Stone. Their first, The Favourite, earned 10 Oscar nominations including one for Stone in the Best Supporting Actress category and one for Lanthimos as Best Director. Olivia Colman was named Best Actress for her performance in the 2018 film.
Stone and Lanthimos discussed Poor Things while making The Favourite, but it took a while for production to actually get underway.
“It’s such a fairy tale, and a metaphor — clearly, this can’t actually happen — but the idea that you could start anew as a woman, as this body that’s already formed, and see everything for the first time and try to understand the nature of sexuality, or power, or money or choice, the ability to make choices and live by your own rules and not society’s — I thought that was a really fascinating world to go into,” said Stone, describing the appeal of playing Bella in an interview with Vogue.
The cast also includes Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, Margaret Qualley, Suzy Bemba, Kathryn Hunter, Vicki Pepperdine, and Hanna Schygulla. Lanthimos directed from a screenplay by Tony McNamara, adapted from Scottish writer Alasdair Gray’s 1992 of the same name. Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Lanthimos, and Stone served as producers.
Poor Things will open in theaters no December 8, 2023.
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