Lanthimos isn't as cruel as people like Nicolas Winding Refn or Gaspar Noe or Lars von Trier, but he does want to rub your nose in it. Poor Things hits you with it pretty much right away with Stone's character violently stabbing the body in the face in Poor Things.
That's what I meant in my first post. There is a cruelty towards Plemons and the cousin, and I can't really comprehend what he is going for beyond cruelty for the sake of it.
I see your points @OhTheWater and agree with some of them. Its empty meanness is why I didn’t love the film at first watch. I do think Lanthimos is actively trying to discomfort us though
That and that the aliens decide the whole of humanity are worthless. What is the evidence, exactly? That Plemons figured it out and was trying to stop it? The ending montage of all the bodies everywhere set to music is striking but empty.
The three times a year @OhTheWater actually watches a movie are good because he has interesting, measured reactions to them.
Sure he is, but to what end? I will keep comparing this to Eddington, a much better film, and say that by the end of that movie I truly felt the world should burn to the ground. The anger from Aster is apparent, and it's spraying in all directions. We are a rotten world and we deserve to die. At the same time, I found myself feeling for the various characters in that film on a level that I never get to here. This film comes to the same conclusion, right? Humans are a failed experiment. But I don't see the anger, I don't see the reason. It comes across like edgelord nonsense as opposed to a true reflection of what society looks like in 2025
Plemons' character has been beaten down and taken advantage of by capitalism, by the rich. Driven insane and so desperate that he has convinced himself that something extraterrestrial must be responsible for his misfortunes. Humans could not be so cruel as to deal him the hand he has. And then...he's right? It isn't humans? And then all humans die?
Again not trying to defend the movie lol but idk if it would have with the exact same dialogue if it were just a different actor. But I do think that’s part of the intention of choosing stavvy so fair.
This is kind of how I feel when a horror movie uses the Salem witch trials as a backstory for their very real supernatural witches. I know it’s not the point they’re making, but it creates a justification for very historically unjustified crimes and murders against innocent people by creating a new reality where their paranoid delusions used to harm others or grab power were actually based in reality, and the people who were innocent victims are deserving of their violent fate.
I don't think I agree with all of your takes on the film up to this point, but as someone who liked (didn't love) this, this is also my biggest gripe with the ending
That's also kind of Yorgos' calling card, though - thematic misanthropy and tonal weirdness for weirdness sake. It's not surprising they don't mesh as well when the film feels very topical to current events
I don’t think Emma Stone being an alien makes the conspiracy theorists truly “right.” To me, it works that he’s surprisingly close to correct about the details, but his conclusions from that are still wrong in the ways that matter. I also didn’t respond in the theater, or feel right now thinking back, that the suicide or molestation are primarily played for laughs. There’s certainly an absurd, amped up aspect to how it was depicted, and mileage will vary on how far the tone can be pushed without also losing the sincerity along the way. But, I personally felt the weight of the shit that went down and kept sympathizing with the characters. To me, this effectively captured how a cruel, fucked up world can push people with incomplete pictures of what’s going on in directions that are simultaneously farcical and fucking heartbreaking. And in the case of Plemons’ actions, how someone hurt by that world can respond in ways that are destructive to themself and those they would say they care about.
I think that first paragraph is splitting hairs a little bit lol. He believes that there are aliens/that she is an alien and he's right. Also disagree with your second paragraph. He is an experienced, talented director. He knows how both of those scenes will play with an audience. He would have shot them differently if he wanted a different result. The suicide absolutely but a lump in my gut and made me feel for the character, but the over the top gratuitous blood undercuts those feelings. I agree with the last part though, I just think that the movie looks down on him rather than views him at his level.
my biggest complaint is it tries to tackle so many different themes (class, mental illness, conspiracy theories, power dynamics, humanity? etc) that it fails to really hone in and explore any of them in detail
I really don’t think it’s splitting hairs to say that distinction matters. Saying her being an alien makes him right is, to me, similar to saying Epstein shit makes pizzagate right. Thinking back on the film and the options for how they could’ve ended things, I honestly think it’s important that he picked up on half truths that he then went completely off the rails with. And, idk, I haven’t gotten around to Yorgos’ pre-Favourite films yet, so I’m not qualified to speak that in depth on his patterns of black comedy and cruelty. What percentage of his decision making in the suicide scene was shock value for shock value’s sake, vs being gross and blunt in service to the film? I cannot say. But even if he is just deep down a sick fuck, I personally felt both in the moment and after the fact like it worked in context. Purposeful or not, it is nasty, so I don’t fault anyone for bouncing off the nastiness! But, I’m someone who sometimes bounces off a piece of media if I don’t find something to latch onto besides cruelty, and I personally left the movie glad that I watched it. Is it as successful as Eddington? That movie was my favorite movie of 2025, so I would agree that it isn’t, lol. But, I still found it overall successful in some overlapping ways.
But he isn't right a little bit, he is significantly right. Wasn't he even right about the hair being used to contact?
Yes, and she was going to take him on the ship before he blew himself up, right? Like he was potentially 100% correct until he fucked it up with his own buffoonery?
i don't think she ever actually intended to take him. we also don't know anything about the ship itself. i know it's an easy out bc plemons has the bomb strapped but it stands to reason any human would die trying to get on she also kills all of humanity at the end haha. i don't think there's any reason to presume she wouldn't have killed him herself given the opportunity.
I’m rusty on the exact details. Would have to rewatch to get into, like, the specifics. But from what I recall, he does a good job at learning about the Andromedans’ biology and spaceship, etc., while getting a lot wrong about their history and plans and relationship to humanity.
Blank check/vulture’s awards pod has a pretty good conversation comparing this to Eddington. I ultimately disagree with several of their points (mostly them saying this is empathetic with the characters and not mocking them) but it’s a good conversation
I’ve listened to some of those “critical darlings” episodes in spite of thinking the Oscars are stupid and have zero value to me, personally. Look forward to hearing their thoughts on this. I’m still firmly in the “these are sympathetic characters and not primarily punching bag, in spite of the blunt depiction of their absurdity” camp & will not be changing my mind on that, lol.
A co-worker recommended this film to me so I watched it with my mom and brother tonight, and my feelings are mixed. I get it's billed as a "black comedy" but I didn't find anything in the movie funny in any kind of way, just really fucked up and sad. I felt like most of the film was a deconstruction of this conspiracy theorist as a very troubled individual up until the part where Stone's character starts laying into him (which was excellent), and I had a hard time just pinning down what this film was about. I've read a little on TV Tropes and I like the idea that even as Stone's character looks sad at wiping away the human race, it's kind of a fake sad because it's ignoring their own complicity in what happened, much like she tries to wipe away their complicity in what happened to the protagonists by throwing "reparations" at the problem. And the way she convinces him to kill his mom with the antifreeze, in retrospect strikes me as extremely fucked up considering his mom was an innocent person in all of this and her condition is their fault. Even if she thought that he would get arrested before it got that far, it's still an incredibly cruel turn. I don't completely know what my takeaway from all this is just yet. In the end, I think this was a good film and I don't regret watching it, it just got way more dark and heavy than I was anticipating, and I'm still processing it.
I think I almost blocked out the antifreeze part because I hadn’t remembered it until now. Extremely hateful movie. The longer I spend from it the more I realize I dislike it.