Oscar award-winning actress Emma Stone’s new Sci-Fi movie Poor Things is stirring up controversy for including graphic sex scenes featuring a woman who has the “mind of a child.”
The film, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, follows a young Victorian woman who is brought back to life after killing herself. After a doctor successfully resurrects her by giving her the mind of a child, Stone’s character embarks on a journey of “self-discovery” and “sexual liberation” with a depraved lawyer. In addition to starring Emma Stone, the film is set to feature big-name actors including William Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo.
Poor Things premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2023. Beyond being selected as a contender for The Golden Lion, the highest prize given at the festival, the movie has also debuted with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and is already getting a lot of Oscar buzz, TMZ reports.
In addition, critics, like Editor-in-Chief of Next Best Picture, Matt Neglia, are praising the novel-adapted film as technically dazzling, sexually liberating, pro-feminist, and even imaginative:
“Poor Things is the most technically dazzling film Yorgos Lanthimos has constructed,” wrote Neglia in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
“A sexually liberating, pro-feminist, imaginative tale of reawakening & discovery featuring the best performance of Emma Stone’s career. Mark Ruffalo has never been funnier. A sensational triumph!”
While critics are unsure of what age 34-year-old Emma Stone’s character is mentally, TMZ points out that most outlets have likened her character to an infant. Despite this, mainstream media outlets were quick to sing the film’s praises.
IndieWire described Poor Things as “the best film of Lanthimos’ career… mordantly funny, whimsical and wacky, unprecious and unpretentious, filled with so much to adore that to try and parse it all here feels like a pitiful response to the film’s ambitions.”
“It may be the first Lanthimos movie in which this unsparing filmmaker doesn’t just slice his characters open but actually likes what he sees,” said The Los Angeles Times.
Some X users, in contrast, were horrified by the movie’s plot, many of whom believe it is a sick attempt to normalize pedophilia and trans-ageism, wherein someone has an “age identity that differs from their chronological age.”
Amy Eileen Hamm, a writer at The Post Millennial, posted a screenshot of a TMZ article on X with the caption: “Hollywood normalizing “trans age” and pedophilia.”
In response, many, like writer and podcaster Momus Najmi, shared Hamm’s sentiments, describing the film as “disturbing.”
When asked to describe the film at a press conference, Lanthimos admitted that the movie is hard to describe, but believes it is “extremely” contemporary.
“It’s a film that’s very hard to describe. There have been films throughout time that are unique and exceptional,” explained Lanthimos. “In our time, there are maybe not many films like it. It’s hard for me to say what it is.”
Lanthimos is known for his controversial filmography, which includes the disturbing Greek-language surrealist film Dogtooth. The movie followed a sadistic mother and father who intentionally keep their children isolated from the outside world, intentionally teaching them false information about common items, physically abusing them, and even organizing sexual encounters for them.
“Speaking about freedom and the way we perceive the world and the position of women in society and the relationship between men and women is very contemporary,” Lanthimos said of Poor Things. “Things have changed slightly, so we have new tools to identify things, and the book was written in the 90s. It’s funny that much has changed since then.”
Poor Things will hit theaters on December 8, 2023, in North America and on January 12, 2024, in the United Kingdom.
