One of the most acclaimed science-fiction movies of the 2020s has officially found a new streaming home, giving audiences another opportunity to experience one of the decade’s strangest and most visually distinctive films. Science fiction has taken plenty of forms since 2020, from sprawling superhero blockbusters and dystopian epics to intimate stories built around artificial intelligence and humanity’s relationship with technology. Yet some of the genre’s most memorable recent films have deliberately rejected conventional ideas about what science fiction should look like.
Instead of relying on futuristic cities, spaceships, or familiar technological concepts, they have used speculative ideas to explore identity, sexuality, freedom, social expectations, and the nature of humanity. Even among these, one particular movie stands out for its extraordinary production design and deliberately surreal approach to its period setting.
Its world looks vaguely Victorian while also containing bizarre inventions, fantastical architecture, exaggerated costumes, and dreamlike landscapes. It is a film that feels simultaneously like science fiction, fantasy, dark comedy, romance, and gothic fairy tale.
This unusual approach was rewarded during awards season, with four Academy Award nominations and five BAFTAs. Now, almost three years after its theatrical release, Poor Things is available to watch on Hulu.
Poor Things Is One Of The Decade’s Best Sci-Fi Movies
Released in 2023, Poor Things follows Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter, a young woman resurrected by the eccentric scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter. Willem Dafoe’s Godwin has replaced Bella’s brain with that of her unborn child, resulting in a character whose physical body is an adult but whose intellectual development begins from infancy.
That premise allows director Yorgos Lanthimos and Stone to turn Bella’s journey into an unconventional science-fiction coming-of-age story. She travels from London to Lisbon, Alexandria, and Paris with Duncan Wedderburn, played by Mark Ruffalo, gradually developing her independence and challenging the social expectations imposed upon her.
Poor Things‘ science-fiction elements are inseparable from its visual identity. Robbie Ryan’s cinematography uses extreme wide-angle lenses to distort interiors, while James Price and Shona Heath’s production design creates an alternate Victorian world filled with fantastical architecture, mechanical inventions, and impossible landscapes.
Stone’s performance provides the emotional center. Bella’s vocabulary, physicality, and understanding of the world change dramatically as she gains knowledge, eventually becoming a fiercely independent woman who refuses to accept the limitations placed upon her.
That combination of speculative science, surreal comedy, and feminist themes helped Poor Things become one of the most distinctive studio films of the decade. It also earned Stone her second Best Actress Oscar, cementing the movie as a defining achievement of her career.
Poor Things Continues A Great Emma Stone Trend
Poor Things is particularly fascinating because it represents the middle of an increasingly remarkable creative partnership between Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos. Their collaboration began with The Favourite in 2018, in which Stone played Abigail Masham, an ambitious woman competing for the favor of Olivia Colman’s Queen Anne. The film earned Stone an Academy Award nomination and established the relationship that eventually led to Poor Things.
The pair subsequently made the short film Bleat, shot in Greece, before reuniting for Kinds of Kindness in 2024. Lanthimos described their relationship as one built on trust and creative inspiration, with Stone becoming increasingly involved behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera.
Then came Bugonia, their latest feature collaboration, which once again puts Stone inside one of Lanthimos’ bizarre worlds. It earned Stone yet another Oscar nomination, continuing a run that has made their partnership one of the most distinctive actor-director collaborations in contemporary cinema.
Poor Things has therefore become one of the clearest examples of what happens when an Oscar-winning actor and an uncompromising filmmaker discover they can make increasingly strange movies together – and audiences keep following them.
- Release Date
-
December 7, 2023
- Runtime
-
141 minutes
- Director
-
Yorgos Lanthimos
- Writers
-
Tony McNamara, Alasdair Gray
- Producers
-
Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Emma Stone, Yorgos Lanthimos