“There is a world to enjoy, to circumnavigate. It is the goal of all to progress and grow.” A new trailer for the A24 film starring Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo, titled Poor Things, was released just recently. After working together on The Favourite, director Yorgos Lathimos reunites with the actress to present fans with a fresh take on the Frankenstein monster.
The 1992 book of the same name by Alasdair Grey served as the inspiration for Poor Things, which was adapted into a screenplay by The Favourite Writer Tony McNamara. In the film, Stone plays Bella Baxter, a deceased lady who is called back to life by Dr. Godwin Baxter, played by Willem Dafoe.
Ruffalo portrays Duncan Wedderburn, a lawyer who seduces Bella. The two fall in love while traveling the world. But since this is a Frankenstein-like tale, the happy couple’s circumstances cannot continue as they are. Emma Stone’s reanimated figure wants to see the world, even if it may not be ready to greet her as she had hoped.
Poor Things trailer is filled with serene mixtures of colors with odd imagery
Bella’s “brain and her body are not quite synchronized,” as Dafoe’s character remarks in the trailer, which causes some amusing moments as she awkwardly learns to wink and dance around. The reborn woman is “progressing at an accelerated pace,” according to Dafoe’s scientist, which seems to quickly spur Bella’s own desire to be free and see the world.
Bella kisses a character played by Mark Ruffalo in a teaser that features peculiar visuals, including what looks to be a dog with a duck’s head and a duck with a French bulldog’s head, as well as what appears to be Dafoe’s character’s ‘experiments’ with a duck. Later, Ruffalo is seen shouting her name in the street before Bella slaps him, leaving the character all but stunned.
This week, Emma Stone got down with W Magazine to talk about how she ended up working on this particular project with Mark Ruffalo. In the end, the actress couldn’t resist reuniting with her The Favourite director.
“My character Bella is a bit of a Frankenstein, but she’s also a bit of an experiment in the sense that everything is happening very rapidly on her,” Stone explained. “So her hair grows about two inches every couple of days. It had to get longer and longer quickly because that’s what happened in the book.”
Talking about how she admired Willem Dafoe’s love for art, she said, “There’s this instinct to perform that many actors have — the ‘look at me, look at me!’ kind of performer. He’s the opposite of that.”
Poor Things is in theaters on September 8, 2023.
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Watch the Trailer of Poor Things here:
