★★★★★

Any notion that a more mainstream following, in a post-Favourite world, might have impacted a dampening of spirit upon the vision of Yorgos Lanithimos are quickly quashed by his latest feature. Indeed, Poor Things is a stunningly depraved endeavour. It is a film that renders the quirks of Queen Anne quite tame. Take the plot. Emma Stone plays a woman resurrected from suicide, only to have her brain replaced by the still cooking foetal brain of her as yet unborn baby. The lunacy is better understood in the film’s conceptual context, of course, but proves no less rampantly weird for it. What’s more, one will be hard pressed to uncover a more visually resplendent film all year. A bold statement for January but impudently true nonetheless.