Gosh!
I went to see this film because I knew it had won some awards and was a bit weird.
Set in a steampunk world, surgeon Godwin Baxter (William Dafoe, made up to look as if his face has been stitched together from other parts, a la Frankenstein’s monster) employs Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), one of his medical students, to make notes on the progress of Bella (Emma Stone), an apparently retarded woman. We discover that Bella’s body is that of a woman who threw herself off a bridge when she was pregnant and that Godwin (whom Bella calls ‘God’) removed the baby’s brain and transplanted it into the body of the woman. But the baby grows up fast and soon wants to explore the big wide world. She finds a man, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) to exploit her and to have sex with her. He takes her abroad but can’t keep up with her insatiable demands and her desire to learn, learn, learn so she leaves him to continue her education, learning philosophy and, from a distance, about poverty. She ends up in a brothel in Paris, still learning about her body. And about men. Discovering that Godwin is dying, she returns home to marry Max ... and then there is another twist.
It was incredibly weird. There’s the Frankenstein theme, with Dr ‘God@ Baxter creating chimeras from dogs and ducks, as well as experimenting on brain transplants. There’s a lot of what the censor-card warns is ‘strong’ sex and nudity. Most of it was extremely funny. And there’s a strong message about female empowerment.
The acting was tremendous. The steampunk sets were breathtaking. The story itself is based on a novel by Alasdair Gray. It started in black and white and then shifted into full colour with a fascinating palette.
It has been nominated by BAFTA as best film, outstanding British film, best leading actress, best cinematography and six other awards. In the Critics’ Choice awards, Emma Stone won best actress and it received nominations for best picture, best costume design, best cinematography and best adapted screenplay. She won the Oscar for best actress. And in the Golden Globes it has been nominated for best score, best screenplay, best director (Yorgos Lanthinos) and best supporting actor twice for both Mark Ruffalo and William Dafoe, and won best picture and best actress.
1MDb gives it 8.4/10. Rotten tomatoes gave it 82% and their critics 93%. The Guardian gave it five stars, the Independent four (they felt that some of the brothel scenes were a bit voyeuristic).
I was convinced, for the first thirty minutes or so, that my wife would find it dreadful and that I would be in great trouble for suggesting it but after the “furious jumping” (what Bella calls sex, which she enjoys uninhibitedly) began, we were both rocking with laughter. Weird, yes, but brilliant definitely.
For my review of the book, click here.
The acting was tremendous. The steampunk sets were breathtaking. The story itself is based on a novel by Alasdair Gray. It started in black and white and then shifted into full colour with a fascinating palette.
It has been nominated by BAFTA as best film, outstanding British film, best leading actress, best cinematography and six other awards. In the Critics’ Choice awards, Emma Stone won best actress and it received nominations for best picture, best costume design, best cinematography and best adapted screenplay. She won the Oscar for best actress. And in the Golden Globes it has been nominated for best score, best screenplay, best director (Yorgos Lanthinos) and best supporting actor twice for both Mark Ruffalo and William Dafoe, and won best picture and best actress.
1MDb gives it 8.4/10. Rotten tomatoes gave it 82% and their critics 93%. The Guardian gave it five stars, the Independent four (they felt that some of the brothel scenes were a bit voyeuristic).
I was convinced, for the first thirty minutes or so, that my wife would find it dreadful and that I would be in great trouble for suggesting it but after the “furious jumping” (what Bella calls sex, which she enjoys uninhibitedly) began, we were both rocking with laughter. Weird, yes, but brilliant definitely.
For my review of the book, click here.
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