FIPRESCI critics have watched Poor Things upon its premiere in Venice, here’s what they wrote about it for fipresci.org:

Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos, winner of the Golden Lion at the 80th edition of the Venice Film Festival, saw at its center a young woman, Bella Baxter, who is given a second chance at life, and an opportunity to see the world with fresh new eyes, thus ignoring all social and cultural restrictions associated with the fact that she belongs to the female gender. Her behaviour is therefore deprived of unnecessary caution, sexual inhibition and an acceptance of her ‘appropriate’ place in the Victorian world, and she becomes what nobody else around her is: a person completely free to decide for herself, and to own her body and soul. Emma Stone, who delves into the character of Bella with unabashed joy, didn’t win the Coppa Volpi for acting only because festival rules state that the winner of the Golden Lion cannot be awarded any other prize.

Paola Casella – Italy

Even during the strike in the US film industry, Venice has once again managed to shine. With the winner of the Golden Lion, the festival on the Lido offered a preview of the upcoming Oscars. Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things will also be impossible to ignore there, just as no one here could escape the intoxicating feeling of having the wonders of cinema served in an overdose. The 141-minute adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s comic novel Poor Things took the audience and critics by storm. Even though the outstanding Emma Stone could not personally accept the applause for her most demanding role due to the strike. In this audacious Frankensteiniade, Willem Dafoe plays creator and monster simultaneously. An artistically disfigured scarred face bears witness to the experiments endured by the son of a ruthless scientist as a child. Bella, on the other hand, his lovingly cared for creation played by Stone, is entirely different. As a suicide victim, her body has found its way into his eerie-romantic studio, and in her mind, the implanted brain of her unborn baby grows. Thus, a being of striking innocence and unbridled curiosity matures, one that soon develops a special interest in its own sexuality and ultimately a rebellious perspective on a male-dominated capitalist society.

Externally, one would think oneself in a Scotland where Victorianism would continue to thrive into the future. However, from the inside – as Lanthimos effortlessly blends into Bella’s perspective – it is a sparkling world in the brilliance classic Technicolor films. And when she plays childlike cacophonies on the piano with broad fists, the film music by the visionary Jerskin Fendrix subtly picks up on these sounds and admirably intertwines them in the following scenes for a symphony of artistic representation and film design. Emma Stone lends credibility to a fantasy character from the very first moment and a special dignity to the numerous sex scenes. When Bella embarks on a world tour with a dubious admirer, the film at times looks like a Jules Verne adaptation from the 1950s, with veteran stars like Hanna Schygulla in grateful supporting roles. But all the splendor of a box of chocolates pales in comparison to the audacious and subversive developmental story being told here.

Daniel Kothenschulte – Germany