Emma Stone's Frankenstein fantasy Poor Things debuts to 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

Poor Things has emerged as one of the films of 2023 after premiering in Venice this weekend, and could well sweep up at the next Oscars.

Featuring an unhinged Emma Stone as the gender-flipped Frankenstein's monster Bella Baxter, The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos gives us an adaptation of the late Alasdair Gray's 1992 novel here, mixing body horror with black comedy and mesmerising backdrops as the protagonist escapes her creator Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) with moustachioed lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo).

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Ahead of its screenings at Telluride Film Festival, New York Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival this autumn, Poor Things is already blessed with a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes - based on 26 reviews.

One of which was published by The Hollywood Reporter, reading: "Stuffed with rude delights, spry wit, radical fantasy and breathtaking design elements, the movie is a feast. And Emma Stone gorges on it in a fearless performance that traces an expansive arc most actors could only dream about."

Extending the high praise, Variety found Poor Things to be "a vast absurdist odyssey, positively compact at a galloping 141 minutes, that takes in a groaning buffet of settings and ripe secondary characters — all played with relish by a dream ensemble that runs the gamut from Jerrod Carmichael to Kathryn Hunter to Hanna Schygulla — but rests on a single astonishing performance by Stone."

Also in attendance for its Venice Film Festival premiere was The Guardian, which shared: "This film comes to us from an elite group of talent, including cinematographer Robbie Ryan and production designer Shona Heath, with an insinuatingly strange musical score by Jerskin Fendrix.

"Everything in it – every frame, every image, every joke, every performance – gets a gasp of excitement."

Total Film went on to summarise: "A funny, sad, bawdy, beautiful concoction that will haunt and provoke in equal measure."

We can't wait for this one.

Poor Things comes to UK cinemas on 14 January, 2024.

Watch: Emma Stone had "no shame" filming raunchy scenes in Poor Things