Emma Stone is a reanimated corpse with the brain of a baby in Poor Things

Searchlight Pictures has released a teaser for the new Emma Stone movie Poor things — and unlike many other teasers, this trailer deserves the name, with just 30 seconds of footage and one line of dialogue (two, if you count an extreme camp “ow” from Mark Ruffalo).

Nevertheless, there is much to intrigue and confuse in this collection of surreal images from the mind of director Yorgos Lanthimos (The lobster, The favorite). And it’s not just from the mind of Lanthimos. Poor things is an adaptation of the 1992 novel by quirky Scottish author and illustrator Alasdair Gray, who very much had his own pursuits (including sex, socialism and typesetting – not only did he illustrate all of his own books, he also hand-set them) .

So, as a fan of both Gray and the book, let me explain what you see here. In fact, the official logline isn’t a bad place to start:

From filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Emma Stone comes the incredible story and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she lacks, Bella sets off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Freed from the prejudices of her time, Bella grows steadfast in her goal to stand for equality and liberation.

This is a decent summary, but it omits some of the juicier and funnier details of Gray’s plot and characterization. Let’s break it down by character – with the caveat that Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara (who co-wrote The favorite and Stone’s Cruella as well as making the TV show The big) may not have been willing or able to replicate all of these on screen.

• Bella Baxter by Emma Stone isn’t just another young woman brought back to life – she’s the corpse of a young pregnant woman, reanimated with the brain of the baby she was carrying, who then develops at an abnormally fast rate. So she is her own daughter and mother. She is curious, intelligent, kind, compassionate and has a huge appetite for both food and sex (the shape of the window behind her this set photo no coincidence).
• Godwin Baxter by Willem Dafoe is the brilliant, private wealthy doctor and captive who brings Bella to life. In the book, he’s a real giant, with a huge head, weirdly conical hands, and a high-pitched voice that’s unbearable to hear – but he’s also kind and principled. It seems Lanthimos chose to reduce him to normal size and instead express his grotesquerie through facial scars, though he doesn’t appear in the same shot as other characters in the trailer.
• Duncan Wedderburn by Mark Ruffalo is a crazed lawyer and inveterate gambler who takes Bella on a long European journey, planning to take advantage of the pretty, innocent young woman. But he gets surprised when her appetite surpasses his and he can’t keep up.
• Max McCandless by Ramy Youssef is supposedly the movie version of Archibald McCandless, the narrator of the book. He is Godwin’s friend and colleague, a good doctor of humble origins, and also a bit dull, who gets engaged to Bella before running off with Wedderburn.
• Jerrod Carmichael‘s Harry Ashley is an English gentleman Bella meets on her travels, whose cynical, imperialistic worldview is challenged by her compassion. He falls in love with her just like every other man in the story.

The film looks visually heavily stylized, almost fantastical, while the book is set in a semi-realistic Victorian world with a few gothic embellishments. The trailer’s opening shots refer to Frankenstein’s story, which Gray tapped into for his book. Otherwise, the film seems to focus on Bella and Wedderburn’s steamship tour. In the book, she has other adventures, including a spell in a Parisian brothel, and spends a lot of time with Godwin and McCandless (whom Bella calls “Candle”) in Glasgow in her absence.

It remains to be seen how much of the book Lanthimos and McNamara will bring to the screen, but if you’re curious I can’t recommend it enough – like all Alasdair Gray it’s hilarious, touching, passionate and glorious. foreign.