‘Poor Things’ Review: Yorgos Lanthimos Deliciously Funny & Fantastic Epic Is One Of The Year’s Very Best [Venice]

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor “Poor Things” can win things. That’s a nugget of information we gleaned at the conclusion of Venice, Telluride and Toronto, the three major fall festivals. For starters, Yorgos Lanthimos’ sci-fi dramedy collected the Golden Lion at Venice.

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Guy Lodge Film Critic Unorthodox family structures yield correspondingly unpredictable drama in “Housekeeping for Beginners,” a vital, febrile multi-character study that further confirms writer-director Goran Stolevski as a talent to be reckoned with. Departing radically from the poise of his folk-horror debut “You Won’t Be Alone” and the gentle intimacy of its swift follow-up “Of an Age,” this study of domestic, romantic and generational conflicts in a crowded queer household instead embraces a spirit of antic chaos, both in subject matter and jagged, hit-the-ground-running execution.

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The Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion has been given to a winner!

It’s interesting how the Venice Film Festival has gone from one of the festivals of the fall festival season to arguably the best film festival in the world now, even overshadowing Cannes in recent years thanks to the fact that Netflix now avoids the Croisette for the most part because of France’s theatrical laws and save their Oscar contenders for the Lido. Venice has had an amazing run, arguably since 2017 when Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape Of Water” won the top prize and then went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture, which has happened one more time since with “Nomadland” and several key Oscar contenders since).

Speaking at the Venice Film Film Festival winners’ press conference, Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos said he was “personally very disappointed” that his lead actress Emma Stone couldn’t be with him to enjoy the film’s Golden Lion win, but that he also “understands the cause”, referring to the SAG-AFTRA strike which has kept the actress away.

Guy Lodge Film Critic The closing-night awards ceremony of the 80th Venice Film Festival has concluded, with the critical favorite and presumed frontrunner, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Emma Stone-starring adult fantasy “Poor Things,” living up to the buzz — it has taken the Golden Lion from Damien Chazelle’s jury. Other winners include Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Agnieszka Holland, Matteo Garrone and U.S.

Ben Croll Remarking on the sterling success of Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” in Venice and of Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” in Cannes, “All Quiet on the Western Front” director Edward Berger has noticed a trend – and he hopes to apply that recognition back to the German industry. “Film4 came and took [filmmakers like Jonathan Glazer,] Yorgos Lanthimos and Steve McQueen and gave them the opportunity, fostering them and sheltering them and [helping] them make their movies — and look where they are now,” said Berger at a Venice Film Festival panel.

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Total admissions to theatres at this year’s Venice Film Festival have hit 114,851, up 18% on last year, according to figures published by the Biennale this week, as the film event passes the midway point. 

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The plan was for renowned director William Friedkin to be appearing at the Venice Film Festival presenting the out of competition World Premiere of his latest production, an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s 1954 play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Unfortunately Friedkin died August 7th, but the show goes on anyway.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor “Sex is back,” said Julie Hintsinger, executive director of the Telluride Film Festival, to a packed house of festival-goers as they took in the newest effort from Yorgos Lanthimos at this year’s 50th anniversary. One of the festivals tributes this year, a pre-screening convo was moderated by director Karyn Kusama, as the two discussed his filmography which included his early works “Kinnetic” and “Alps.” In the audience were Oscar winners like director Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and actor Casey Affleck (“Manchester by the Sea”), and they, along with the crowd, devoured it.

Ten years after “Spring Breakers,” the neon pinks and greens of Harmony Korine’s mainstream breakthrough return in an Internet-inflected and even more abstract ode to the thug life, with seriously mixed results. To call “Aggro Dr1ft” stupid or silly isn’t wrong, but it is missing the point.

Christopher Vourlias The question of whether Hollywood stars will light up the Lido this week has roiled the film industry in the run-up to the Venice Film Festival. “Poor Things” lead actress Emma Stone was among the marquee names that were holding out for a SAG-AFTRA exemption allowing her to promote the Frankenstein-inspired period film from Oscar nominee Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”), which bowed in competition Friday to a lengthy standing ovation and rave reviews.

Poor Things,” the oddest movie to premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival, landed the biggest standing ovation so far. On Friday night, Yorgos Lanthimos’ drama, starring Emma Stone as a woman who finds her identity through a series of tragic (and scientific) events, received an eight-minute standing ovation at its world premiere. “Genius! We love you! Yorgos!” the crowd chanted at the auteur director behind “The Favourite” and “The Lobster.” Lanthimos lapped up the love and attention, as he walked down the balcony of the Sala Grande Theatre, shaking hands with his fans and signing autographs.