Eleven Academy Award Nominations For ‘Poor Things’
“Poor Things”, a production by Irish Fremantle subsidiary Element Pictures, is in the running for this year’s Academy Awards with eleven nominations, including the top categories “Best Picture,” “Best Director” for director Yorgos Lanthimos, and “Best Actress” for Emma Stone. The 96th Academy Awards will be presented in Los Angeles on March 10.
Only “Oppenheimer” scored more nominations! “Poor Things,” a movie produced by Fremantle’s Irish subsidiary Element Pictures, enters the race for this year’s Academy Awards with a whopping eleven nominations, including for the top categories “Best Picture”, “Best Director” for director Yorgos Lanthimos, and “Best Actress” for Emma Stone. The winners of the 96th Academy Awards will be announced in Los Angeles on March 10.
Based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray, “Poor Things” tells the fantastical evolution of Bella, a young Victorian woman played by Emma Stone. Following her suicide, Bella is crudely brought back to life by her guardian, the scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Incredibly naïve but wanting to see more of the world around her, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn, a debauched lawyer played by Mark Ruffalo, and travels across the continents on a journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation. The life of Baxter’s student Max McCandless (Ramy Youssef) also suddenly changes when he meets Bella and is literally ripped from his sheltered life by her. Little by little, Bella discovers her passion for social justice and liberation and is thus able to free herself from her own constraints and leave her prejudices behind her.
As reported, “Poor Things” won two Golden Globes earlier this month: “Best Motion Picture” and “Best Female Actor” Emma Stone – both in the ‘Musical or Comedy’ category. The comedy-fantasy film has also received eleven nominations for this year’s BAFTA Film Awards, the most important British film prize, which will be presented in London on February 18.
The Element Pictures production premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2023, where it promptly won the prestigious Golden Lion award. AT the time, Edward Berger, Director of “All Quiet On The Western Front” and a creative partner of Fremantle, had heaped praise on “Poor Things” and made a spot-on prediction: “I can guarantee you that film will be super successful. Because it’s new, it’s different, we’ve never seen it before and it’s bold.”
Since its premiere and release in U.S. cinemas in December, the film has received much critical acclaim. Emma Stone’s performance, in particular, has been praised by various media outlets: “Entirely astounding,” according to the LA Times; “bawdy, boundary-pushing broke”, according to the Washington Post; and “hilarious, beyond-next-level” according to The Guardian. “She was a character unlike anything I’ve ever played, or read or seen before,” Emma Stone said of her own performance.
