Yorgos Lanthimos | the m0vie blog

371. Poor Things (#246)

Posted on March 23, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Deirdre Molumby and Ciara Moloney, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things.

Bella Baxter is a most remarkable young woman. Although she has the body of an adult woman, she also seems to possess the mind of a child rapidly developing and growing. Under the guidance of her adoptive father Godwin Baxter and his assistant Max McCandless, Bella tries to navigate the complex and contradictory Victorian soiety, learning much about humanity – and herself.

At time of recording, it was ranked 246th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: barbie, Emma Stone, european, Filmmaking, formalism, frankenstein, gender, identity, imdb, lily gladstone, Oscars, podcast, poor things, sex, sexuality, Succession, The 250, This Just In, Yorgos Lanthimos | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Favourite

Posted on December 4, 2018 by Darren

If the stock comparison to The Killing of a Sacred Deer is The Shining, then the obvious comparison to The Favourite is Barry Lyndon.

It is a stock comparison, bordering on facile. After all, there is a world of difference between Yorgos Lanthimos’ story of two women competing for the attention of Queen Anne and Stanley Kubrick’s story of the rise and fall of a roguish Irish gentleman. However, the similarities are striking. Both are eighteenth century period pieces that boldly eschew the conventions of period dramas. Both The Favourite and Barry Lyndon rely heavily on natural light and repeatedly draw the audience’s attention to the nature of the narrative of constructed.

You Only Live Weisz.

However, the most striking point of comparison might be thematic and philosophical rather than simply literal or textual. Just as The Killing of a Sacred Deer explored the collapse of a family unit through the prism of decaying masculinity in a manner that recalled The Shining, the world of The Favourite is defined by its study of power, pettiness and pomposity. As in Barry Lyndon, the fickleness of comfort and the arbitrary nature of security are a recurring fascination for The Favourite, which meditates repeatedly on how precarious such positions can be.

The Favourite is a story of cruelty, both human and natural.