POOR THINGS Can’t Escape the Male Gaze | Emma Stone's 2nd Oscar Incoming? | Movie Review!

yoro lantha poor things let's just pay a moment of silence for all those families who are going to be seeing poor things on the Christmas holiday because they've heard it's an awards Contender probably going to be nominated and win a few Oscars and it stars aist beloved actress Emma Stone so let's just take a moment because they are going to be in for an awkward family gathering with yorgos Lemos poor things which stars Emma Stone Mark Ruffalo William defo Ramy ysf Christopher Abbott and Jared carmichel this film follows Bella Baxter a young Victorian woman who after being crudely resurrected by a scientist played by William defo following her suicide runs off with a debauched lawyer to embark on an odyssey of self-discovery and sexual Liberation and let's just kind of start there this film is directed by yorgos lamos of the favorite and a screenplay by Tony mcha who also worked on the favorite and instantly you probably just noticed those are both male uh directors and writers writing about female pleasure which instantly should ring your bells and be like can we can we focus on that for a second and we will because that is a fundamental criticism that I think is extremely fair to give this movie and I believe poor things was able to overcome a lot of that criticism largely because Emma Stone was what it sounds like a producer of this film and was very key in developing the character of Bella paxter thus providing a female perspective in this movie however I don't want to discredit again that this is a movie about female pleasure made by men and that needs to be noted because I think there are some real fundamental criticisms I have of this movie that relate back to that but I want to start a little bit more positive so let's start on this Emma Stone performance and that's because this performance is so audacious and it requires so much of her as an actor this is a performance where she she has to be so comedically sound so focused on the correct characterization of this character because if it falls in the wrong direction in any way I think this film becomes either extremely offensive or maybe even far more fetishizing of this character Bella which I don't think this film actually is however I think that's solely due to the Emma Stone performance kind of holding this film completely together it's just such a wonderful performance from her I think she's so funny in this film she's able to take everything that's made in a stone interesting and a movie star over the past 15 years it's able to take the comedic sensibilities that she's had in films such as EA Zombie Land Super Rat it's able to take that romantic interest that she's had in films Like Crazy Stupid Love La La Land it's able to take the Artistic integrity that she's had in certain roles where she's willing to go offbeat and eccentric that she's done with yorgos before in the favorite it's able to take all those elements of Emma Stone and weaponize them into this performance of Bella Baxter and it allows this character to feel real while also being representative of a coming of the age story and I think that's what Emma does so well in this role as does Mark Ruffalo who is basically to stand in for every stupid man and their dumb beliefs and they're wanting to control wom Mark Ruffalo is the butt of every joke in this movie and he's so delightfully funny in this movie and it's downright pathetic and yet there's always this bit of you where you always kind of get excited whenever he comes on screen it's kind of that Pavo syndrome where you're just like you you see him and you're like okay we're about to get just an amazing line reading from Mark Ruffalo it's going to be so out there it's going to be so weird and Ruffalo is just fully game for it and he's fully understanding that he needs to make himself the butt of the joke to benefit the Bella of Baxter character so his character is a little one-dimensional however that Dimension is then able to be transferred to Bella so he serves his purpose well William defo being the mad scientist of this movie I think everyone would kind of expect this Frankenstein like character it's a far more sentimental performance from William defo he actually provides a lot of the heart of this movie and I thought he was excellent in this film as well I thought all the performances were really excellent uh Ramy ysep is very good Jared carmichel is the one that I want to point out that I didn't fully Buy in on I think Jared carmichel is a very funny individual and he for whatever reason he just didn't match the energy of this movie there's scenes where he's funny in it I just didn't get the character in characterization and I think this character is severely underwritten and speaking of underwritten I think that's where I want to start because the writing of this film is where I have some real fundamental flaws in it but before we jump to that I just want to say if you're liking this review do me a favor and hit that subscribe Bell I'm trying to get to 500 followers subscribers by the end of 2023 so if you've done that thank you so much for subscribing but going back into poor things the writing of this movie has some flaws and I think it's also with the camera Direction done by yorgos one I just didn't love every sensibility that yorgos brought to this movie this film uses fishey to just kind of annoying effects where you're just like okay I get it I like at first it feels like it's almost supposed to be feel L little Voyer where you're just watching this character and it's almost like a Peeping Tom feeling from it and then it's also kind of supposed to kind of show how I think we're kind of just viewing Bella in this small little window if you will and then as she goes along her journey the film expands and her world viiew expands thus the you know that small little view that we're seeing it's just gets bigger the issue I had with it it is used persistently throughout the film and I just kind of at some point just started going like okay I get it like you really like this angle I just don't really care about this angle anymore or like I just this camera shots just no longer that interesting to me I've seen you do it a bunch and let's just kind of move on and there are scenes where yorgos just kind of self- indulges in it I think there are specifically scenes where the camera lingers too long and I think this is the issue of the male gaze where it just it focuses in on just little moments and little like eccentricities of the Emma Stone performance and I'm not talking about even necessarily any of these sexual scenes in this film but just the way that it looks at her body uh in this movie there's one shot with the feet uh where they're shooting Emma Stone's feet I should say that I just found a little just it went on to for so long and it just it gave me a little bit of an ick feeling while watching it I don't know why it is but maybe it was also a little bit mixed with that self- pretentiousness of this where I was just watching I'm like okay do we really need to spend 15 seconds just kind of sitting on this shot like can't we kind of move it along I was already kind of feeling the run time of this movie because I think the second act of this movie is the best the first and third have real fundamental flaws on them the First Act being the fundamental flaw is Bella Baxter essentially has the brain of an adolescent and the body of an adult woman thus there are scenes where she's acting like a baby or a toddler in a full woman's body and you start to kind of see where this film's going as she discovers her sexuality and that's where I'm starting to get really uncomfortable with this movie where I'm just like is this really going to be a movie about a toddler discovering sexual adolescence like is that really what I want to see with this movie and this just feels so deeply for lack of a better word of a fetish and I was like I'm not really into it now that's not what the film becomes and that's largely due to Emma Stone because I think if Emma Stone's not in this movie I think the film actually could fundamentally fall into that category of it but they start really developing Emma ston Bella's character she starts getting a lot more adultlike if you will or at the very least going through the coming of age story does she feels like a real person and no longer like this toddler and then the third act just has the uh failure of it brings in a new character and I believe that character is played by uh Christopher AB avot who's good in this movie but they bring this character who has this pass with Bella Baxter and it brings this already 2hour and 20-minute movie it just stops it and it loses momentum going on and I kind of get this feeling of like okay I get it but let's kind of just keep moving and while I think it does end in a very satisfactory place place it does lose me throughout at certain scenes I think just some scenes really needed editing to just kind of get this run time a little bit shorter I did notice the 2 hours and 20 minutes is what I am trying to say uh but those are really like my big thoughts on poor things and I want to just share one hot take before I go out because it's been such a fundamental discussion of this movie and I think it's actually slightly rooted in misogyny slightly rooted in just I think again male Centric film criticism and that's that I think a lot of people have probably heard that this Emma Stone performances so vulnerable it's so just out there she's going for it like she's doing all these things like it's such a brave performance like she Bears it all and what those film critics I think are trying to say is that Emma Stone is frequently nude in this movie and that's what they're trying to say and the issue with saying it that way is it reduces the Emma Stone performance to Simply Her Body which is an element of acting in this movie she is doing a lot of physical acting in this movie and a lot of physical comedy and some of those do come in the sex scenes to wonderful effect comedically however we've now completely reduced that Emma Stone performance to wow she bared it all for us and it's such a brave performance and I think that's just so fundamentally wrong to understand this Emma Stone performance there is Extreme layers to this and it is far more of a Coming of Age film and I think that gets lost when we describe films like this and when we focus it entirely on the female body and female sexuality and I think this is one of the issues with just having male Centric film criticism going on especially for a film about sexual Liberation and the female body it just it's a lack of understanding and it's a lack of awareness so when I've been reading some of these reviews I kind of just cringe because I'm just like why are we just focusing on this element of the Emma Stone performance I don't even think a lot of them have really talked about the comedic beats that Emma Stone hits or the emotional vulnerability or just the everything that she's able to Encompass to make this Bell of Baxter character real it just comes back to oh my God she's really just going for it in this performance and she's willing to just kind of just put herself out out there in a really vulnerable way and she is and that should be commended however that shouldn't be the dialogue focused entirely on this performance because it is a one-of-a-kind wonderful performance from Emma Stone so I just wanted to acknowledge that I think it again is rooted in this idea of male Centric film criticism and just needing more female voices in it there's this wonderful article on volure which I will just say and I'm blanking on the name of the writer right now she's an extremely talented writer and I'll be be sure to share this in my uh description below but she writes an incredible piece about poor things that good dives into some of the aspects that I talked about in this review again kind of focusing on this idea of female pleasure through the male gaze and I think it's a really wonderful piece and I really recommend you reading it she is a far better writer than I could ever dream of being and she writes lines in there that are just so witty and clever that I'm just I'm kind of in awe of it I think it's such an incredible so I would really encourage people to check that out despite some of my issues on this movie I still really enjoyed myself I think yorgos does a good job even if I think it needed some adjustments here and there it's definitely an entertaining movie and Emma Stone is just incredible as is Mark Ruffo there is a lot of fun to be had in this movies and it's far more straightforward than I thought it was going to be this movie despite how weird some of the premise is I think it is kind of just a straightforward comedy As It Gets goes along and it's really easy to see how this film will become a crowd pleaser once you get over some of the weird aspects of this movie so I can recommend poor things on a scale of four stars I'm giving it three out of four stars here on the Bene Movie Channel so if you like this review make sure to like And subscribe for more and like I said do me a favor hit that subscribe button so I can get to 500 subscribers by the end of 2023 thank you all for watching take care and happy holiday is

Channel: Ben Tito Friedman Reviews Movies

Views: 7,146

Keywords: Emma Stone, Critics Choice Awards, Poor Things, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Actor, Yorgos Lanthimos

Id: gyLa_nRlYJI

Length: 13min 30sec (810 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 19 2023