Yorgos Lanthimos – Baltimore Magazine https://www.baltimoremagazine.com The Best of Baltimore Since 1907 Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:09:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Yorgos Lanthimos – Baltimore Magazine https://www.baltimoremagazine.com 32 32 Movie Review: Poor Things https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/movie-review-poor-things/ Thu, 28 Dec 2023 18:56:32 +0000 https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/?p=151799 Continued]]> Poor Things is a steampunk, quasi-feminist reimagining of the Frankenstein story—an overstuffed odyssey that takes us from a mad scientist’s gothic lab to the streets of Lisbon and Paris, to a brothel, a luxury cruise ship, and beyond. And yet, in a strange way, it is one of Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ most conventional films.

I say this with a slight bit of disappointment. I liked Poor Things—especially the super game lead performances from Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo. And I enjoyed the film overall—I’m recommending it. But I really wanted it to have a little more madness, a few more things that made me recoil, provoked me, shocked me, especially from the director who gave us the unsettling Dogtooth and The Lobster. Somehow, despite the wild-eyed and rococo premise, the film is a bit…decorous.

Let’s start with Willem Dafoe as that mad scientist. He is disfigured—because his own mad scientist father experimented on him when he was a boy—but just enough so that you take in his appearance, acknowledge the ungainly flaps of skin on his face, and move on. Now, there is at least something grotesque about him—because his innards were also experimented on, he can’t properly digest and needs a contraption to expel nearly solid burp bubbles whenever he eats. That’s the kind of bonkers imagination I was looking for throughout. It comes infrequently.

The film starts with an image of a pregnant woman about to hurl herself off the London Bridge. Then we cut to that same woman, the now gloriously named Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), no longer pregnant but with the mind and physical aspect of a baby. Yes, Dafoe’s Dr. Godwin Baxter has taken the dead woman’s body and implanted her fetus’ brain in her. Now, he will see what becomes of her and raise her like a kind of twisted father, of sorts, in a house filled with cadavers, mutant animals (a duck with the head of a French bulldog a goat with a duck’s head, etc.), and one forbidding housekeeper. Eventually, he will be joined by an earnest medical student, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), hired to chart Bella’s progress, who is devoted to both the scientist and his subject.

Stone is, indeed, incredible as Bella—it’s a performance that requires all the acting chops: physical comedy, as she stomps around like a drunken toddler; uncommon grace, as she contorts her adult-sized body into childlike shapes and positions; emotional depth, as Bella becomes more and more curious and cynical about the world; and carnal fearlessness, as she explores Bella’s mounting lust.

Inevitably, Bella wants to get out of that house. It starts when she goes on the roof and sees a vast world out there. Then, reluctantly, Godwin allows her to ride in a (closed) carriage and enjoy a remote lakeside picnic. Max becomes even more devoted to her—he’s falling in love. (A credit to Youssef, in a tricky role, that Max comes across as kindhearted, not predatory.) Godwin proposes that Max and Bella get engaged, which they do.

Her ultimate ticket to freedom comes in an unlikely form: A caddish lawyer named Duncan Wedderburn (Ruffalo), who’s a rake, a lothario, and a bit of a dandy. He seduces Bella, easily—she has discovered touching herself and is now super excited about sex—and they run away together.

When Bella has her first orgasm with him, the film turns from black-and-white to color. (I won’t dwell on this, but this “feminist” fantasy—written and directed by men—tells on itself a bit when it takes a man to achieve this feat.) The peripatetic Duncan expects to have some sex with Bella, turn her onto a few of life’s worldly pleasures, and be done with her—but there’s a bit of a role reversal. He becomes obsessed, besotted, and doesn’t know what to do with himself. It’s great fun watching Ruffalo, who we are used to seeing in naturalistic roles, take on this preening narcissist. Duncan can’t quite figure out whom he’s angrier at—Bella, for enrapturing him, or himself for allowing it to happen.

In one of the film’s best sequences, Bella and Duncan end up on a cruise liner (he’s trying to kidnap her, essentially), where she meets a wizened grand dame (Hanna Schygulla) and her jaded young companion. The grand dame loves Bella’s insatiable nature, her lust for life—but her young companion (Jerrod Carmichael) is threatened by it and tries to corrupt her. It’s an intriguing sequence, seeing these various responses to Bella, and a bit too short in my estimation—but this is what happens, I suppose, when you turn a 336 page book into a two-hour movie.

The next bit involves Bella earning her way at a brothel—she does is partly because she likes sex and partly because she needs the money. Either way, this is another example of the film’s questionable feminist bona fides, but it does allow for another great performance: Kathryn Hunter as the rapacious madam who can’t decide if she wants to seduce, exploit, or devour Bella.

The less said about the final act—involving Christopher Abbott as the husband of Bella’s late “mother” coming to claim her—the better. It feels unnecessarily on the nose—and a bit dreary after all the romping.

All in all, Poor Things is a fun, occasionally bewitching diversion, with a pair of truly remarkable lead performances. I just wish it had gone further. Watching it, I felt a bit like Bella—intrigued, amused, but ready move onto my next adventure.

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]]> Movie Review: The Favourite https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/movie-review-the-favourite/ Tue, 04 Dec 2018 17:37:00 +0000 https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/?p=25947

The early 18th century European courts—with their elaborate wigs and rouged lips and crinoline petticoats—have always been ripe fodder for satire. Because, let’s face it, all that puffery can’t hide the baseness of human nature, especially when power is at stake.

It’s only natural that Yorgos Lanthimos, the absurdist Greek director of such films as The Lobster and Dogtooth, would be drawn to this sort of ostentatiousness and hypocrisy. He loves cloistered worlds, and even more importantly, he loves pointing out just how delectably awful people can be.

The dark comedy The Favourite, which Lanthimos directed from a razor-sharp script by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, tells the true (if highly embellished) story of Queen Anne, who ruled Great Britain from 1702 to 1707, and the two ladies in waiting who vied for her loyalty and affection.

The acting here is nothing short of sublime, undoubtedly the best ensemble work of the year. Olivia Colman plays Queen Anne as a tragic and ridiculous figure—gluttonous, needy, not that bright, but touchingly childlike in her desire for approval and affection. At first, her “favourite” is Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz), who wields enormous power (she handles the court’s finances, devises military strategy, and visits with the heads of state) while also answering to the queen’s every demand, which sometimes include sexual favors. It’s possible to watch The Favourite and come to the conclusion that Lady Sarah is nothing but a wily opportunist, that her devotion to Queen Anne is simply transactional. However, I think that Lady Sarah is actually fond of the old bat—although whether she has any actual lust for her is another story. What’s more, she’s good for her, keeping her happy, telling her when she’s being ridiculous (“You look like a badger,” she tells her at one point, when the queen’s makeup is less than on point), and tending to her many ailments (among other things, the queen has terrible gout).

The two women are thick as thieves, so it’s just a matter of time that an agitator will disrupt their blissful harmony. She comes in the form of Abigail (Emma Stone), who is Lady Sarah’s cousin, once a lady herself, but now destitute and looking for work. Out of a sense of familial obligation, or perhaps noblesse oblige, Lady Sarah gives Abigail a job in the maid’s quarters, which Abigail is both grateful for and eager to rise above. Noticing the special relationship her cousin has with the queen, she endeavors to curry her own favor with the monarch. It’s not that hard to do if you’re pretty and you’ve been paying attention: a little flattery, a little flirtation, and a willingness to cater to all of the queen’s enormous appetites. But unlike Lady Sarah, Abigail will never keep it real with Queen Anne, calling her beautiful and desirable and pretending to dote on the menagerie of pet rabbits that roam her queenly chambers.

Just as the Queen’s affections shift from Lady Sarah to Abigail, our affections shift, too. At first, the sweet Abigail is the clear protagonist—and we see how jealously Lady Sarah responds to her. But whether Abigail changes or has always has the potential for deviousness—“As it turns out, I’m capable of much unpleasantness,” she says at one point—we soon find that Abigail is no cowering naïf. What ensues is a claws-out power struggle, with nothing less than the fate of England at stake.

Lest there be any doubt, the men in the queen’s court are ridiculous, too, from the handsome and besotted Sir Masham (Joe Alwyn), whom Abigail plays like a fiddle, to the vain and scheming Lord Harley (Nicolas Hoult), the most puffed up of them all, who isn’t above a little physical violence if it suits his needs.

The film is directed with gobs of wit and style by Lanthimos (although I confess his repeated use of a fisheye lens is a bit distracting) and the costumes and sets are jaw-dropping. In the end though, this is a three-woman show—and it’s nothing short of a privilege to watch them work.

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