Only one being are you missing and the press conference is depopulated? As expected, due to the strike in Hollywood, Emma Stone is not at the Mostra to promote Poor Creatures, a film under the Disney flag by Yorgos Lanthimos, in the running for the Golden Lion. But, to answer questions from journalists, the production brought in a crowd on Thursday afternoon, going so far as to make room for the make-up artist behind the microphones – only the props man is missing. She was quickly relieved. The room is full as an egg. The Greek Lanthimos is loved on the Lido, where he triumphed in 2018 with La Favorite, already with Emma Stone.
Poor Creatures is based on a novel by Scottish writer Alasdar Gray. It features Willem Dafoe as a surgeon with a stitched face and eccentric ideas. The mad scientist recovers the body of a pregnant woman who survived drowning (a failed suicide) to replace her brain with that of her unborn child. The creature is sexier than Frankenstein since it has the features of Emma Stone. But she has the behavior of a capricious baby who stammers her first words and rides a tricycle around her London mansion. Dafoe hires one of his students to document the progress of Bella Baxter (that’s her name) on a daily basis. A debauched lawyer (Mark Ruffalo) breaks her free. They flee to Lisbon, then on a steamer en route to Athens. Bella Baxter discovers the pleasures of the flesh. Between two somersaults, the beautiful ignorant reads books on the advice of Hannah Schygulla. His childish language becomes more and more sophisticated.
But his emancipation is essentially through sex. The lawyer remains on the floor and Bella Baxter enters a brothel in Paris to continue her apprenticeship. “Sex is brutal but not unpleasant,” notes the neophyte prostitute who strikes up a friendship with a socialist. They hardly have time to exchange ideas. Customers follow one another and have varied profiles. Damien Bonnard, a pedagogical father, takes his two sons on an observation course to teach them how to copulate. Baxter is reminiscent of Barbie discovering the Real World, more trashy and nymphomaniac.
That the despisers of the male gauze are reassured, nothing was done without the consent of Emma Stone. On the contrary, the American actress is the producer of the film and it is an understatement to say that she gives of herself. For a Hollywood star of her stature, she doesn’t shy away from nudity. In all positions and in hideous settings – the cities are more fantastic than realistic, and above all digital. The film’s questionable aesthetic is compounded by Lanthimos’ overuse of wide-angle, or fish-eye, which leads to image distortion. It is up to the viewer to show their endurance in turn to complete the 2h21 of this monstrous film, in every sense of the word.