#‘Poor Things’ Kicks Off Award Season Campaign With Triumphant Venice Bow

Yorgos Lanthimos, who wowed at the Venice Film Festival five years ago with The Favourite, was welcomed back like a returning prince with his new film Poor Things.

The Venice crowd gave a hero’s welcome to Lanthimos, who attended the Venice premiere Friday night without his cast — which includes Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe and Ramy Youssef — who were unable to attend due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. (Poor Things is a studio title and will be released by Disney’s Searchlight.)

But the warm reception here could mark the film for greater things, similar to the arc followed by The Favourite, which debuted on the Lido in 2018, winning two awards — the best actress Volpi Cup for star Olivia Coleman and a special jury prize for Lanthimos — and springboarding into pole position for that year’s awards season.

There is already major awards buzz for Lanthimos’ latest, not least for Stone, who gives a fearless and hilarious performance as Bella Baxter, a young woman who tries to commit suicide only to be re-animated, Frankenstein-like, by a clearly unhinged surgeon and scientist, played by Dafoe, another role with awards potential. Stone also produced Poor Things, alongside Lanthimos.

Ruffalo, playing a caddish English gentleman with debauchery on his mind who entices Bella to follow him on a sex-filled surrealistic journey of self-discovery, was a favorite among the press who screened the film earlier today.

Poor Things is set for a U.S. release from Searchlight on Dec. 8.