Reviews for Poor Things
[Emma Stone] gives an amazing and hilarious performance [in Poor Things] as the sexual-innocent primitive Bella Baxter, the secret experimental subject and ward of charismatic, troubled anatomist Dr Godwin Baxter (whom she calls “God”).
Bella’s progression is both incremental and rapid: beginning non-verbally, she slowly builds a vocabulary, ending the film as a thesaurus-verbose polymath, gleeful in her curiosity, incautious in her lack of filter.
Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com:
This could have gone horribly wrong.
Stone delivers the most astonishing performance, and is perhaps the only actress who could convincingly convey such simultaneous expressions of sincerity, absurdity, intelligence, libidinousness and humor.
Stone aces a cut-glass English accent, as well as the evolution of a woman who goes from being a rapacious consumer of experience (booze, sex, cakes, dancing) to someone who lives on her own terms, sets her own social mores, and determines her place within society.
Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly:
Stone is a gifted comedic actress and she is an ideal match for Lanthimos' tone, a strange mix of black comedy, farce, and social commentary.