Based on a 1992 novel by surrealist Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, Lanthimos infuses his wacked-out aesthetic into this modern, gender-swapped retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by way of Hal Ashby’s Being There. Sitting through Poor Things is an incendiary, hypnotic experience. The film’s subject matter is about nothing less than the human compulsion for self-improvement.
