Meewella | Critic

According to P

Tag: Yorgos Lanthimos

QuickView: Poor Things (2023)

“I found nothing but sugar and violence.”

Bella Baxter

Where The Favourite lulled viewers into a false sense of security before indulging in Yorgos Lanthimos’ sly humour, Poor Things is open with its weirdness from the start. Adapted from Alasdair Gray’s novel, Poor Things is at its core a film about a young woman’s discovery of herself and the world, told through a kind of steampunk historic fable with a visual style reminiscent of Terry Gilliam. The opening chapter is steeped in gothic imagery, a scarred Willem Dafoe embodying both Dr Frankenstein and his monster, literally playing God as he shortens his name, Godwin. Lanthimos reunites with Emma Stone as Godwin’s creation, Bella, who begins undeveloped despite her adult body, toddling and prone to tantrums, the puffy shoulders of her costumes creating an unstable, top-heavy silhouette like the strange chimeric animals that fill the lavish house. I opted to see a rare 35mm film screening which faithfully recreated the cinematography choices, like lenses that provided distortion and mismatched sizing to heighten vignetting, replicating the effect of early cameras. Colour arrives as Bella sets off to travel Europe, accentuating the film’s painted backgrounds. Bella’s immaturity grants her the freedom typically commanded by men of the period, freed from societal constraints as she applies logic without understanding. Emma Stone’s performance is fascinating as Bella evolves over the course of the film in both knowledge and capability, whilst the men around her stagnate — it is a rare opportunity for a single actor to take a character from early childhood to realised adulthood. In the abstract many of the intermediate scenes are bizarre and uncomfortable — particularly given the quantity of sex — and Poor Things must have required extreme trust from its actors that Lanthimos would successfully tie this all together. He has always been a director of singular vision but here it seems stripped of pretension, producing something sly yet whimsical, witty yet haunting.

9/10

QuickView: The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

The Killing of a Sacred Deer poster

“A surgeon never kills a patient. An anaesthesiologist can kill a patient, but a surgeon never can.”

Steven Murphy

Yorgos Lanthimos excels at capturing the disjointed nature of human connection, with conversations unfolding in fits and starts albeit using deliberately unnatural dialogue. This deeply allegorical tale is less accessible than The Favourite, bearing a greater tonal connection to The Lobster by way of Jordan Peele’s more unsettling worlds. Cinematography plays a major part in that disquiet: low, wide-angle tracking shots cause architecture to loom over characters, whilst unusually high shots peer down from a disembodied vantage. Colin Farrell is clearly in sync with Lanthimos’ style on the their second outing together, gradually revealing the layers of a surgeon with a god complex who is forced to confront his own hubris. Many of the locations are fittingly clinical, with rigid lines feeling at odds with the film’s loose logic. Knowing the plot in advance would weaken the film but passing familiarity with the Greek myth of Iphigenia is helpful in decoding its allusions. Ultimately Lanthimos is uncompromising in his vision — surely knowing that the result will appeal only to arthouse audiences — but his intentions are not always apparent onscreen.

7/10

QuickView: The Favourite (2018)

The Favourite quad poster

“Sometimes, you look like a badger. And you can rely on me to tell you. “

Lady Sarah

Sumptuous period costuming allows The Favourite initially to lull the viewer into a false sense of familiarity before Yorgos Lanthimos’s sly humour and trademark weirdness emerge. More accessible than The Lobster (perhaps in part because he is adapting an existing screenplay), The Favourite is a delightful, subversive take on politics in the court of Queen Anne and the rivalry between two of her closest confidants. Plainly fictionalised, the film relies less on historical accuracy than the believability of its leads — three women at the height of their game. Rachel Weisz is coldly ruthless, Emma Stone vulnerable but deceptive, and Olivia Colman is excellent, earning an Oscar by carving a genuinely tragic figure at the centre of this dark comedy.

8/10

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2023 Priyan Meewella

Up ↑