Emma & Yorgos - The Favourite/Poor Things Reviews (Archive)

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0:39With real-time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.com. Hey, film spotters, Josh and Adam here. On Wednesdays, we like to drop something into the feed that comes from the Film Spotting Archive. This week, we're going to share a couple of Yorgos Lanthimos Emma Stone collaborations. 2016's The Favorite, 2023's Poor Things, both of those, Adam, I think, made for some pretty good conversation.

1:20Yeah, we split a little bit, at least, on Poor Things. both fans of The Favourite. First up is that conversation from December 2018 about The Favourite. The Queen is an extraordinary person. They were all staring, weren't they? I can tell even if I can't see and I heard the word fat, fat and ugly. No one but me would dare and I did not. She's been stalked by tragedy. Everyone leaves me and dies.

1:53I apologize for my appearance. I hoped I might be employed here by you as something. A monster for the children to play with, perhaps. Olivia Colman as the beleaguered queen, Rachel Weisz as her ruthless but most trusted friend and advisor, Lady Sarah, and Emma Stone as the interloping viper, Abigail there. And just when I thought last week's conversation about the ballot of Buster Scruggs had exhausted the need to come up with more synonyms for cynicism, we have The Favorite, a film with a decidedly lower body count than Scruggs, with regard to on-screen casualties anyway, but arguably even a more ascetic view of human nature.

2:32Nobody in Queen Anne's early 18th century court gets shot in the back by a rival, as we see in the Cone's Old West, though a rifle may not so accidentally get fired in one's general direction to deliver a pointed message during an otherwise elegant afternoon of pigeon shooting, and even the lowliest kitchen helper with no power or political agenda to angle for is more likely to connive to inflict pain or embarrassment than spare a moment of compassion for a new servant. So Josh, who did you find the most redeemable in this basket of deplorables? Or perhaps, who did you find the most entertainingly irredeemable?

3:08Coleman's exhaustingly needy childlike monarch, Vice's icy, brutally honest Sarah, Stone's seemingly wide-eyed schemer, or rakish puppet master Yorgos Lanthimos, so determined to devise and explore hermetically sealed worlds that present their own unique language, protocols, and acrid blend of decorum and debauchery. Yeah, this is quite the cheery vision of humanity, isn't it? As we would expect from Lanthimos. I think we both knew what we are getting into at this point from that director. And for the most part, we both really enjoy getting into these sorts of dramas that he gives us. Great question.

3:47I would argue they're all redeemable. Nice. But I would also say... Such compassion, Josh. I guess I would say that some of them have more redeeming qualities than others. Let's start at the bottom, which it sounds like we both agree is Emma Stone's Abigail. Maybe not. Oh, okay. I mean, she is just out for the kill from the beginning, and understandably so for many reasons. The more we hear about her past and, as you said, her station in her class. But, man, she's—look out. Look out for her, right? And it is, to answer your other question, a perverse delight to watch Stone get to showcase new levels of deceitfulness, Yes, especially when her early reputation for sure is as a sweet-natured, someone who plays sweet-natured parts, right?

4:39Rachel Weisz, Lady Sarah, I think there might be a little bit of genuine love there for the queen. And it's gotten just tangled up in plays for political power and all sorts of other things that we see happen in this film. So that seems to have faded and faded until it's almost entirely gone. But there is – you still see glimmers of it that makes her – has some redeemable qualities. I think Queen Anne – and this is maybe tied to how I enjoyed the performances. Enjoyed them all. Thought they were all great. But Olivia Colman as Queen Anne is just fantastic in the way that she's at once the most – she is the most easily manipulated in some ways.

5:26But she's also the master manipulator. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that she's at the top of the chain, right? She's the queen, but she plays that card throughout. And Coleman just gives her, there's a lot of King Lear going on in this movie. And I think Coleman captures what that play has is this idea of a monarch as having this weary ferocity of a dying animal. There's a desperation to her so that she's at once the movie's most monstrous presence when she really wields that power. But she's also – I found her to be the most sympathetic and maybe having the most redeemable qualities because of that.

6:03So that's sort of where I landed after a first viewing of this in one way perfect Lanthimos film in the themes that it's exploring and intriguingly different in that costume drama setting. Yeah, I think this movie could have been still a very good film had it been just about taking that pleasure in watching this much bad behavior portrayed as artfully as it is and with such aplomb. But I think what elevates it for me a little bit and what gets back to the question I posed to you is that as much as I loathed each one of these characters for a variety of different reasons, I also lamented the misfortunes of all three.

6:45Lamented what put them all in the situation, some more than others, but put them in the situation that requires them to be as needy or as manipulative and scheming and exploitative as they ultimately are. I think you're probably right about Emma Stone, especially by the end of the film. Her character, Abigail, it's fair to say is the least redeemable in a lot of ways. But there's a key line for me in the movie that comes about three quarters of the way through during her battle with Lady Sarah. And without revealing any of the circumstances, I can say the line. She says, I'm safe now. And in that moment, if you just take it on face value, it sounds as if she's saying, you can't touch me anymore.

7:27And she is saying that. But what she's really saying, if you've seen it, you know, the circumstances in particular, you understand that she truly is now finally in a position where she's not as vulnerable as she has been up to this point in her entire life. She can't be as easily victimized as she has been before. The tenuousness of her survival is something that did give me an appreciation for her shrewdness. You understand that it really is not just about ambition or greed or whatever might drive people to act in this way. It's about that survival. All three characters in a lot of ways, I would say, are people who are incapable of gratification.

8:12There are moments where they maybe get some solace, especially sexually. I think those moments are really the only ones that provide any kind of pleasure whatsoever. But think about Coleman, who I agree with you, is really stunning here. And she's the one who, despite how needy she is and how demanding she is and how incompetent she is as a leader, you recognize that she carries so much pathos and that she is a victim herself. We understand more of that as we go throughout the film, including how much pain physically she is in and has suffered in her life. So that skews our perspective as well.

8:45But back to this idea of gratification, think about how many times in the film we see her lose her mind when she is confronted with joy of any kind whatsoever. The moment when she's walking by with one of the characters I'm blanking on at the moment and she looks out, I think it's Abigail, and she looks out and they admire some kids performing with a conductor. it's like a group of five and it's really lovely music and the look on her face as it turns from one of recognition of that sound and the pleasure of it into horror there's something about it that she immediately recoils from there's also a dance scene in the film that we may talk more about a bit of an anachronistic dance scene that's really pretty great in this film that she also flips out about and gets immediately angry about so you're dealing with characters who all in their own way I suppose, detached and very difficult.

9:37But as we do gain that recognition of their circumstances, even Lady Sarah, I would say by the end of the film, we do recognize that that honesty that she has, that brutal honesty may actually come from a place of love. Yes, she'll do whatever she can to protect herself and protect her standing, but she may be the one who is ultimately serving the queen the most. So the fact that we at least get to think about those questions and consider those characters that way is a real strength of this film. You're right that the queen is a very tortured figure in ways that we come to understand, but maybe not entirely fully.

10:12Abigail, we understand, is a tortured figure as well. We get an explicit picture of that. I guess I fell the way I did towards your question because I asked myself, once each of these three characters do get to a position of power, and that's one of the intriguing things about this film is watching that change, right? Go back and forth. What do they do with that power? And who's the most vindictive and awful when they hold it? Yes, undeniably. There is a very queasy scene that I won't give away involving Abigail towards the end of the film that kind of like revealed her true colors to me. If she were in the queen's place, it would probably look very differently than Anne being in that place.

10:55And we will say for people who have seen it or people who haven't seen it, but eventually do, it is a scene, I know the one you're talking about, that involves an animal. Of course. Right? Yes. I will note as well that actually that moment, the moment you're talking about, which we will dance around a little bit, but it's based on a shriek or it comes out of a recognition of a cry that happens in that scene that's actually set up by a moment earlier in the film that also adds to Olivia Colman's sense of pathos and the vulnerability of her character. there's a moment where Abigail exploits the fact that she is in proximity to the queen and she is about to be exiled or something bad is going to happen to her and so she actually breaks down and cries like a little child in that moment and the queen can't resist in that moment at least exploring what that cry is and what the problem is there is that sympathetic side of her and again it does set up that moment at the end of the film why she would react to it that way so you mentioned the animal element.

11:55You've referenced the dance. These are two things that Lanthimos films, most of them that we've seen, do incorporate in a really idiosyncratic way. I'm guessing that all of these flourishes worked for you because in a lot of ways, this is a very standard costume drama. I mean, the costumes themselves are opulent and gorgeous. And the rooms where this is filmed on an estate in England, the tapestry-lined walls, these are giant spaces, absolutely gorgeous. So this looks and plays the part in a lot of ways. But as Stanley Kubrick did with Barry Lyndon and Kubrick as a filmmaker often referenced alongside Lanthimos because I think they both have this bleak vision of humanity and like to explore just to expose the folly of humankind.

12:43I think they both like to do that. And Kubrick did with a period piece. This really has a lot of those touches that set it apart. Another one might be the fisheye lens that he occasionally goes to. I don't know offhand if that's something that has been a recurring technique in his other films, but it's certainly used here. So I'm curious to hear how that landed for you. The camera also will often make a sweeping pan that takes in the enormity of these rooms. So we're not getting a masterpiece theater, set the camera in a gorgeous space and let the actors act. We're getting a lot of lanthi-bos here.

13:19It worked for you? Yeah, it absolutely worked for me. I think it's another real strength of the film, that fisheye effect. I didn't get a chance to really go back and study the film and see if this bears out moment to moment. But often I noticed it was employed when we were seeing characters in times of distress, which made sense. Now, sometimes it's characters going down a hallway, but also there's a moment of tension in that scene, whatever they are going to or they are leaving from. But particularly in a scene like where the queen goes to speak before parliament and let's just say it doesn't go very well.

13:52It's sort of foreshadowed really the couple moments just before it by that very distorted kind of fisheye lens, which I think does just kind of cue us into the fact that something is a little bit off. those wide lenses and the wide frames that you mentioned for me really emphasize the order of everything the structure of everything that seems to be in exactly its place but then that's perfectly juxtaposed with the chaos yeah inside and also outside which is only really ever hinted at in this film we never really do kind of get out of this court which is for me as i suggested in the setup another way this is a lanthimos film through and through the cynicism the dark humor the dance scenes, the animals, if you will, but also the fact that this place has its own way of communication, its own rules.

14:39And you have all these characters trying to navigate that. He seems particularly invested in exploring that throughout his films. Think about the lobster in the hotel that they go to, right? That's the foundation for the entire film. And also one of the things he does really well, despite how vast this court is and how big these frames are, you still get this kind of claustrophobic effect because he'll use the Orson Welles Citizen Kane technique of a lot of shots that are low angle. And when we're seeing a room and we're seeing a character or often characters in a room, we also see the ceilings.

15:14There was one I was just rewatching today where we see Emma Stone. I think it's in the hot chocolate scene and she goes to pour it. So she's bending down. She's already kind of low in the frame. The camera is below her looking up. The ceiling feels as if it's right on top of her because of that wide lens and the decision to make sure that that ceiling appears in that shot. The ceilings appear in almost every shot in this film, which just keeps all of these characters contained in a way that does feel appropriately oppressive. Well, that's probably why it's really unique in this film. Often we get a low angle shot of someone looking up at them.

15:50And traditionally, most often that conveys a sense of dominance and power to that character. It's the exact opposite here. It somehow diminishes them, which of course is exactly the aim of the entire film so i think all of those techniques are very effective i didn't i'd have to go back and watch again as well to you know identify a common through line to the fisheye lens thing but overall it it just does distort our understanding of what this movie is going to be so i see it as part of the again this is what Barry Lyndon sets out to do is spoof the genre as it is being this beautiful example of it.

16:30So it's trying to have both ways. And I think it does have both ways. No, I agree. The fisheye lens is one way to kind of remind us that we're really tweaking something here. The dance sequence is another thing where we all know this is coming in a costume drama. And maybe, you know, a lot of times those dances, I'm a huge fan of musicals and dance numbers. But when I get one in a costume drama, I start to kind of sink a little bit because I feel like I know that way. Yeah, it starts that way. I feel like I know these routines, right? No, this goes a little bit differently. Yes. And so that's part of the satire, as are the wigs.

17:01I mean, these are the craziest wigs I've seen in a costume drama in quite some time. Nicholas Holt's very good in this film as the leader of the opposition party, who apparently in this time actually just existed at court and were kind of a bug in the queen's ear or her advisor's ears every single day. I think he's really good. But you're right. That wig goes beyond anything we've seen before. Barry Lyndon, obviously, and Kubrick is a very good touchstone for this movie as well, including, you can tell, using the natural light and candlelight, which he does in this film. Great candlelight scenes.

17:33I love the way that does give a certain beauty to those nighttime scenes, but also a darkness that adds to the overall kind of grimness of it. And then in the daytime, it's all coming in from those huge windows and it's England. So, of course, it's not sunny and gorgeous. It's gray outside, which also adds to this sense of this court maybe being not quite as regal as it perhaps purports to be.

18:09understand me never lived outside god's house what so bella so much to discover and your sad face makes me discover angry feelings for you right become the very thing i hate grasping succubus of a lover So not quite as divisive of a film here in Poor Things, Adam. I think I've largely seen positive responses, but certainly a movie that could provoke such reactions. I think you have to come out of the film feeling fairly strongly one way or the other. Ironically, I don't know that I did, but as we've seen with Saltburn, maybe I'm just too rational in these cases. Do you have a stronger, more spirited opinion to give us when it comes to poor things?

19:00Yeah, I do have a very strong, positive reaction to poor things, though it didn't necessarily start that way. It's a Lanthimos movie, so it will surprise no one to hear that the first 20 to 30 minutes I found so utterly bizarre and twisted. I never really got my footing with it and kind of thought if there was someone out there who really dislikes his films and thought this was now just going to be almost a parody of Yorgos Lanthimos, I could see how this movie, or at least the beginning of this movie, might support such a theory. And yet, by the time Emma Stone's Bella character gets away from her father figure and gets on the road or gets out to sea eventually with Mark Ruffalo's character, that's really where I got on board with this movie.

19:52It's so formally inventive and fantastical, it makes the new Miyazaki seem almost prosaic by comparison. I thought of that, too. Yeah, there's some Miyazaki aesthetic touches here. The skies, the purplish skies, for sure. Some of the ships even, or the boat looks against those backdrops, with an Emma Stone performance that simultaneously grounds it and elevates it. Josh, at this point, I'm not sure I expected to come away from any movie being surprised by how smart and how playful a Stone performance could be, but that's what happened here. Her command and dexterity with the dialogue as Bella gathers more information and intelligence, the humor that comes from that, her evolving physicality from those awkward, stiff-legged baby steps to becoming this woman so comfortable in her own skin that her very being is a challenge to the patriarchy.

20:49There's just a theatricality to it physically, verbally that I think in the hands of a less skilled performer could come off as so forced and could be so easily dismissed. But she just brings this bravado, this audacity, this confidence to it that I think really is what propelled me through this in addition to the sheer imagination of it. Yeah, for me, it's that sheer imagination that, you know, lands me on the side of recommending the film. Again, like Saltburn, in hopes that folks will see it and like it even more than I did, which it sounds like you did. But in terms of my experience with the film, I had the opposite one.

21:29I was on board immediately. Maybe it was that, you know, Frankenstein lab experimental setting, which I'm a sucker for already. and any movie that nods to like the James Whale Frankenstein, although cleverly those sequences shot in color. I think that was a wise choice on Lanthimos' part, not black and white like other parts of the film are. I'm in for all that stuff, right? But it did eventually wear me out where by the end I was thinking, you know, maybe on another day I would have laughed my way through this entire thing. But now I'm just kind of exhausted. I think this is an example, Adam.

22:07I would not say it's a parody of Lanthimos. I think it's Lanthimos getting to do whatever he wants after The Favorite and the Oscar clout and the power that gave him. And so he chooses this novel. I'm assuming it's a bizarre novel from 92. I'm unfamiliar with it. Scottish author Alistair Gray wrote this, that it's based on and just indulged in whatever, you know, macabre whim, dark comic impulse that that material inspired that the screenplay here is actually by Tony McNamara. But Lanthimos is absolutely the guiding creative force. Though Stone, to your point, you know, I think she can be credited equally for what this film is doing.

22:47And I noted her partnership with Lanthimos in The Favorite. She's a producer here. And so I think both of them are just completely unrestrained. And sometimes that can result in the greatest art of someone's career. Sometimes it results in a parody of themselves. For me, this is somewhere in between. It's absolutely pure artistic expression. It's free from any commercial concerns. Stone, to your point, is gleefully smashing any preconceived notions of her persona. She already did that to a degree in the favorite, I think, but this is way beyond. And to your point about the creativity, they're being supported, the two of them, by costume design, art direction, production design that is so unfettered and so incredible that it absolutely, I could keep looking at this movie even as I was getting exhausted by what it was doing at the same time.

23:41those interludes breaks between the sections which are almost these tableaus these black and white moving paintings with stone at the center i wish those had been on screen longer just to gaze at i mean the artistry on display this is a signature achievement and as i said just utterly exhausting and i'm afraid i have to say eventually stone's performance fell in that category for me as well. I think everything you described is right. This is so technically impressive. The degree of difficulty that she is trying to pull off, I can admire, but it did eventually begin to become more about the lengths of outrageousness that she could perform.

24:25I think it takes a turn away from that at the end, but there's a long middle section where it's mostly about whatever outrageous thing Bella can do. And Stone just has her foot down, the pedal down on that so hard that it was in the same register as, you know, think about the fisheye lenses that are employed here. Or there's also, I would love to hear what your take was on this other aesthetic touch. It's sort of a people aspect ratio that cinematographer Robbie Ryan employs. those things became exhausting as well. And I felt like Stone's performance fell in that category too. But yeah, what did you make of the cinematography here?

25:09And not only the color changes in black and white, but these aspect ratios, the fisheye lens, it was just so much. It's a lot. I'm on board with the indulgence in this case. I wasn't so on board with the fisheye here, which is ironic because I'm pretty sure I praised it, how it was employed in the favorite. Yeah, I liked it there too. Here, maybe I'm conflating the two different techniques you're talking about, but even with the fisheye, my sense here watching it was that it was almost meant to convey like we're, we're peeking through a door and we're spying on something that maybe we shouldn't be seeing.

25:45And on one hand, I can make a case for that. And then on another hand, I'm not sure I can entirely justify it with this material. It definitely didn't add to my experience in a significant way. And actually, in contrast to the favorite, it felt more randomly and frequently imposed here. I'd agree. And that, if anything, is the one indulgence that I found a little bit exhaustive about the film. And I know ultimately you are praising Stone's performance, even if it wore you out too. But that language you're using, I get it. The degree of difficulty or the riskiness the technical nature of it. She is a very precise actress.

26:27And yet, to still have that come through, again, this speaks to the theatricality of it, I think, to have that precision come through, but for it never to feel, for me, cold or ever to smother that humanity. That never happened for me with this character. She was constantly a delight to me and an amusing one at that. And then add to it, Mark Ruffalo. Oh, he's just, he's just wonderful. An actor I somehow, Josh, underestimated because I guess I didn't know that he was capable of this, even though I probably should be aware of that. And I'm vaguely aware of his Stella Adler Observatory training.

27:13So you would think he could play a capital C character like this. And yet, I'm not sure I can remember a time when he's done it. The pitch couldn't be more perfect here with this Duncan Wedderburn character. Everything that Rake, that Cad says is such a devilish delight. And the more ridiculous he's rendered, the more hilarious and fun he is. I loved every moment he was on screen and they were on screen together. I completely agree with you on his performance. I'm looking through his credits now. And, you know, the one that immediately came to mind, it's in a much calmer register, but he definitely has some dry humor as Bruce Banner in the Avengers films.