Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023)

[MichaelB]

Well, "child abuse footage" is putting it a bit strong, but "actual teenagers visibly in the same shot as sexual activity" is clearly...

...well, the sort of thing you seek legal advice about in post-production!

Although whether or not that's legally iffy per se is an interesting question, since there was no actual contact at any time - but since it didn't make the slightest difference to the dramatic point of the scene to have the teenagers and the sexual activity in clearly different shots, it's easy to see why they took that decision.

[swo17]

I'm just glad to know the child abuse did in fact happen, even if I have to put the pieces together in my mind

[Rupert Pupkin]

The film is available in 1080 and 2160 - The scene with Damien Bonnard is there so I think that the movie is uncut.
There is a 2160 (like The Favorite) WEB release; so why no UHD/Blu-Ray ? Perhaps in France, later ? Or could there be another US UHD release later ?

[jheez]

It’s owned by Disney in the US and UK, so we’re lucky to get anything physical at all

[Rupert Pupkin]

So, despite the 2160 WEB release; this is only a Blu-Ray release which is announced (as I can see) in the US.
If the UK version is still cut; then we still have the German release (perhaps a UHD) or France for a UHD (if we are lucky; I doubt it).
I preferred far away "The Favorite" (but "Poor Things" has its moments); the cinematography of "the Favorite" deserved a UHD.

[swo17]

If the UK version is still cut

This is not a thing. The original story was debunked. There's only one cut circulating of this film

[therewillbeblus]

Noticed a detail I missed my first two theatrical viewings:

Spoiler

When Bella runs her hand over the paper Victoria, her former 'self', had scribbled in at the manor, and it just says "fuck" everywhere - such a touching, sad moment, and the only real exposure Bella has to a relic of her 'mother'. Feeling sorrow for one's former self (or younger 'parts' we keep with us) and gratitude for their current self simultaneously, as reflected in the dinner scene just after, is Bella's 'final' evolution we see - appropriately the least obvious (perhaps the only stage not overstated) and yet astutely placed as it's one of the more mature challenges one can attempt to juggle and maintain psychologically.

[MichaelB]

If the UK version is still cut

This is not a thing. The original story was debunked. There's only one cut circulating of this film

Not so much debunked as excitably misinterpreted.

[therewillbeblus]

There's no Lanthimos thread and this isn't "in production" yet, but in recent interviews he's given more details on his attempts to adapt Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which sounds to be an ostensibly even less-"adaptable" novel than Gray's!

[domino harvey]

I enjoyed Stone's perf in this and her Oscar was well-deserved, but this film just can't help itself with going too far. Not in a pearl-clutching fashion, just in taking any good ideas far beyond their usefulness (and disregarding others that are far more fruitful). Two examples: Ruffalo is hilarious and his downfall humorous... for a little while. But then he keeps popping up and hitting the same notes. Like, him hollering out "Cuuuuuuunt" at Stone is funny the first time, much less the fifth or sixth. And this film is not content with showing and upending how a woman "should" be in society with how a self-made woman would naturally see her body and those who share it, but it must devolve into familiar Important Story bullshit in the last twenty minutes.

Spoiler

Rather than forcing Stone to live out her days entrapped in the system (and home) like Thérèse Desqueyroux, the film flinches and avoids foisting Stone into a kind of A Handful of Dust ending of left-field absurdist damnation. Rather, the movie devolves into cliches and goes too far to make sure We Get It by having Stone overhear (of course) an Important Conversation about, what else, removing her clitoris entirely. Of course. And because she's never in any danger of such an operation, because this movie is obviously working towards a Yassified finish, we have to sit through a rather limp "empowered" turnabout, with Stone taking the phallus from the man and using it against him. What a fucking mess! I thought the film was far more promising when it introduced Stone turning towards socialism while in Paris, as a film less content to be liked by the most amount of people might have instead shown her growth there and in the collective action of women.

And while I adored the wardrobe, which perfectly captures what a child might choose for themselves to play dress-up, I found the steampunk adjacent Lisa Frank visuals an unnecessary distraction that created distancing the film didn't need. Though to be fair I loved the quite strange visual touch seen in some shots of the foreground in perfect focus but the background not just blurred but sporting Lanthimos' infamous rounded fish-eye lens effect.

Also was amused that in pages of discussion of the scene, no one noted the dad bringing his kids along was a cameo by French actor Damien Bonnard (the doofily kind cop from my beloved En liberte!, among other roles)