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So why is everyone talking about the new film Poor Things?

Firstly, Emma Stone is the star of the show, and to make it even more intriguing, the Oscar-winning actress vows to punch a baby for some odd reason.

Second of all, the excellent director Yorgos Lanthimos (who was at the helm of The Favourite and Lobster) is the master of this piece.

So yes, these two zany stars being behind this new sci-fi romantic dramedy are already causing major Oscar buzz. The fun doesn’t stop there, because Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe are also in Poor Things and the film got a 10-minute-plus standing ovation last month at the Venice Film Festival.

Poor Things, called a “glorious paean to freedom” by a Deadline film critic, is based on Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name, and features Stone as Bella Baxter, a creation of the brilliant and unorthodox scientist played by Dafoe in an echo of Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel Frankenstein.

Hang on, you’re thinking, why in heaven’s name does Stone need to threaten to pummel an infant who won’t stop crying?

As an experiment born from the mind (and surgical hands) of Dr Godwin Baxter (Dafoe), the movie follows Bella as she understands “what it is to be a member of society,” which means we see her go from being mush-minded to a fully formed human. Check out the hilarious scene unfolding in the trailer:

Stone’s comedic candour is titillating, while the genius satire of her learning to become increasingly “more autonomous” leads to the controlling (and very, very horny) men around her (such as Ruffalo’s Duncan Wedderburn) to feel “challenged”.

The bizarre and funny Poor Things will be out in theatres on December 8.

[source:deadline&ew]