So here's the deal: Emma Stone got nominated for Best Actress, and she is one of my favorite actresses of all time (La La Land being the only film I've seen nearly two dozen times in a movie theater), BUT, she does not deserve it for Poor Things.
Alas, she may win it, but her acting felt hammy, lots of "chewing the scenery," as they say.
Yorgos Lanthimos, who directed it, has a very peculiar style, and Poor Things feels equivalent to everything else he's ever done, from Lobster to Deer to Dogtooth.
Dafoe is, as usual, unusual (!), and delightfully so, though he is hard to look at behind all that grotesque makeup.
Mark Ruffalo is a lovable teddy bear, but his character here is the least lovable of them all ;-)
The costumes, music, set decoration, etc. are sumptuous, an eye and earful, like some Monet ablaze.
The story itself is a Mary Shelley sort of creation, which is fine enough, and the arc of each character is terribly entertaining, but my final judgment is "it's much ado about too little."
C'est la vie. To each his own.
Color me happy to see Miss Stone nominated, and for "an unusual picture" to be so regaled.
After all, that's what cinema is for—and it's always a pleasure to experience anything other than the usual ol' cookie cutter nonsense or outright claptrap parading as art.
