Poor Things

Name: Poor Things
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Genre: Drama
Released: 2023-01-01
Duration: 2h 21m
Rating: 8.0
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott

R 2023 Drama · At 2h 21m, it's deliberately paced but visually captivating enough to hold attention.

Critic darling

7.7/10

IMDb

92%

Fresh

88/100

Metacritic

★

3.93/5

Letterboxd

🎬

7.6/10

TMDB

Rewatch

diminishing returns

Attention

full focus

Phone-check

low

The brief

Lanthimos serves up his most accessible weirdness yet with this gorgeously deranged feminist fairy tale that feels like Victorian literature filtered through a fever dream. Emma Stone commits fully to playing a woman-child discovering the world with zero shame, while the production design creates a steampunk wonderland that's equal parts beautiful and disturbing. It moves at a deliberate pace that lets you soak in every bizarre detail, building from awkward comedy to something genuinely moving about female autonomy. Perfect for anyone who loved The Favourite or wants their period pieces served with a heavy dose of surreal body horror.

surreal body horror feminist fairy tale steampunk victorian sexual awakening visually sumptuous darkly comedic philosophical absurdism

The verdict

If you have a taste for surreal art house cinema and can handle explicit sexual content with a hefty dose of body horror, this is a stunning feminist fairy tale that rewards your patience with gorgeous visuals and Emma Stone's fearless performance. If you prefer straightforward narratives or are squeamish about graphic sexuality and disturbing imagery, the 141-minute runtime will feel like an endurance test despite the critical acclaim.