‘Poor Things’ Wins Five BAFTA Awards
The Fremantle-produced feature film “Poor Things” came away with five awards from Britain’s foremost film awards, the BAFTA, in London on Sunday, making it one of the evening’s big winners. The movie won prizes in the categories “Leading Actress” for leading actress Emma Stone, “Costume,” “Make Up & Hair,” “Production Design,” and “Special Visual Effects.”
The feature film “Poor Things,” produced by the Irish Fremantle subsidiary Element Pictures and starring Emma Stone, is one of the big winners of this year’s BAFTA awards. At the presentation of Britain’s foremost film awards on Sunday evening at the Royal Festival Hall in London, the highly acclaimed film picked up five trophies; only the Hollywood blockbuster “Oppenheimer” managed more, scoring seven awards. “Poor Things” received the coveted British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards in the categories “Leading Actress” for Emma Stone, “Costume,” “Make Up & Hair,” “Production Design” and “Special Visual Effects.”
Based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray, “Poor Things” tells the fantastic story of Bella, a young Victorian woman played by Emma Stone. After her suicide, Bella is brought back to life by her guardian, the unconventional scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), but alas – she now has the mind of a small child. Bella embarks on a quest to find herself, always in search of the life experience she is missing. Among others, she meets Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a lawyer who shows her the world beyond science and takes her on a wild adventure across several continents. But the life of Baxter’s student Max McCandless (Ramy Youssef) also suddenly changes when he meets Bella and she literally tears him away from his sheltered existence. Bella gradually discovers her passion for social justice and liberation and is eventually able to free herself from her own constraints and leave prejudice behind.
“Poor Things” was already awarded two Golden Globes in mid-January, namely “Best Motion Picture” and “Best Female Actor” for Emma Stone – both in the “Musical or Comedy” category. The next important date for “Poor Things” is this year’s Academy Awards on March 10 in Los Angeles. The film is one of the big favorites with a total of eleven nominations. These include the top categories “Best Film,” “Best Director” for director Yorgos Lanthimos, and “Best Actress” for Emma Stone.
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,” said Emma Stone of her performance.
