Emma Stone's Sci-Fi Movie Based On A Beloved Book Is One Of The Best Movies Of The 2020s

Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos makes extremely dry and dark comedies that are more likely to leave you alienated and horrified than laughing. I admittedly sometimes have trouble getting on his wavelength — with one exception. His 2023 science fiction comedy "Poor Things" has a whimsy and loud sense of humor his other movies don't, plus a more digestible steampunk aesthetic. One of the best movies of 2023 (sci-fi or otherwise), "Poor Things" is a total romp. Yet, even though the film net lead star Emma Stone a Best Actress win at the 96th Oscars, it's still so weird that it's impossible to describe it as Lanthimos going mainstream. 

One of countless reinterpretations of "Frankenstein," "Poor Things" is set in the 1880s. There, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe, perfect as always) and his assistant Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) reanimate the corpse of a pregnant woman who died by suicide (Stone). Baxter's new "daughter," Bella, has the body of a grown woman but the brain of an infant. The movie shows Bella's mind slowly maturing to match her body. Stone liberates herself from any shame since, as Bella, she has to literally behave like a newborn baby. She's hilarious in the way she plays Bella's often formal cadence crossed with her impulsive childish naivety. 

Unlike certain other Lanthimos films, "Poor Things" is an adaptation. Its source material is the 1992 novel of the same name by Scottish author Alasdair Gray. A postmodernist, Gray's own weirdness was simpatico with Lanthimos'. Having tried to adapt "Poor Things" for years before he finally made it, Lanthimos has said (via Vogue) that after reading the book, he personally visited Gray in Scotland. Gray was already a fan thanks to Lanthimos' 2009 absurdist film "Dogtooth," but, sadly, he died in 2019 shortly before Lanthimos' finished his "Poor Things."

Yorgos Lanthimos' film makes some major changes to the "Poor Things" novel, from an entirely altered ending to a different setting. The movie is set mostly in Victorian London (and the characters have corresponding accents), whereas the novel's primary setting is Glasgow. Alasdair Gray was a Scottish nationalist, and that political identity is reflected in his writing, "Poor Things" included. Lanthimos, who obviously doesn't share the same heritage or resulting political convictions, decided to omit the Scottish themes from the film.

"I couldn't make a Scottish film. But the rest of the story was so universal, so elemental, that I felt I could do that," as Lanthimos told Screen Daily in 2023. In moving the setting to England, Lanthimos revisited the setting of his and Emma Stone's previous film, and the first one they made together: 2018's "The Favourite." Set in the 1700s, "The Favourite" (which is very loosely based on real history) is a tale of palace intrigue that follows court newcomer Abigail (Stone) and Duchess Sarah (Rachel Weisz) as they compete for the favor of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), sexual and otherwise. 

Watching Stone go from "The Favourite" to "Poor Things" is to see her essentially swap roles. Colman's Queen Anne has an immaturity similar to Bella's, while Abigail is a conniving shark. Their relationship is rather similar to the dynamic between Bella Baxter and her sleazeball suitor Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo). It's also a testament to Stone's talent she can play both the one strung alone and the one doing the stringing.

Now, all three of the female leads in "The Favourite" got Oscar nominations (Olivia Colman in lead, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz in supporting), and Colman actually won Best Actress that year. Yorgos Lanthimos delivering a Best Actress win each with two successive films is nothing to sneer at, nor is the talent of the women he chooses to work with.

Stone and Lanthimos have now made four feature-length movies together total, including the 2024 anthology film "Kinds of Kindness" (she plays three different characters across each of its segments) and 2025's "Bugonia," an absurdist sci-fi thriller. In the latter, Stone plays Michelle Fuller, an emotionally-dead pharmaceutical CEO incapable of communicating with anything but bloodless corporate doublespeak. Basically, Michelle is the kind of person who is ruining the world, and one of the twisted parts of "Bugonia" is testing how much sympathy you can have for her as she's quite literally tortured.

Between her boardroom cadence, empathy deficit, and an almost serpentine stare, Michelle carries herself like an alien presence ... which is why cousins Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Todd (Aidan Delbis) kidnap her. They're convinced Michelle is an invader from the Andromeda Galaxy. Bella Baxter and Michelle are worlds apart, but Stone shows the same fearlessness in playing both parts (like shaving her head for Michelle).

Stone broke out as a rom-com lead and Spider-Man's girlfriend, but she has since proven herself one of the most diverse and daring A-list actors alive. The common factor of Stone's best performances is her work with Lanthimos.