Poor Things

This insane feminine spin on Frankenstein is at once a grandiose and picaresque adventure, one of the most astonishing films of the year and the consecration of Emma Stone as a great diva of our time. It narrates the story of Bella Baxter, created in an eccentric surgeon’s lab with the body of a woman and the brain of an infant. Free of moral restraints, Bella leaves the house of her creator to discover the world, accompanied by a shady lawyer eager to possess her youthful beauty. But Bella has no intention of being possessed by anyone and instead embarks on a path towards liberation that incorporates sex, literature, friendship and cream tarts. Bella’s thirst for progress reveals the hypocrisy informing social conventions and romantic behaviour; her urgent quest is pursued with a graceful, entirely irrepressible logic. This Victorian fantasy is also a feast for the eyes: all the characters move through a dreamily distorted fin de siècle version of Europe, where costumes, architectures, dialogues and even animals are opulently baroque and crafted down to the smallest detail. The wit and intelligence behind this women’s fantastical liberation tale is like a blessing at a moment when fast-food style feminism has invaded mainstream production. (Rebecca De Pas)

Ö1 breakfast film on October 30: Admission and coffee at 5.30 am and free breakfast-to-go after the screening! 

Yorgos Lanthimos: KINETTA (2005), DOGTOOTH (2009), ALPS (2011), THE LOBSTER (2015), THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER (2017), THE FAVOURITE (2018)