4 Oscars for “Poor Things” by George Lanthimos
The thrilling journey of recognition for the Greek director’s creation, “Poor Things”, continued at the top film Academy Awards. Thus, after the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, the two Golden Globes, the five BAFTA awards, the four gold statuettes are now joining the “dance” of distinctions in the best way possible.
The battle was tough and difficult against the… atomic bomb of “Oppenheimer”, which swept the competition with 7 awards in total, but the victory of “Poor Things” in 4 of the 11 categories it was nominated in proved that George Lanthimos has well and truly entered the elite of world cinema. He reached 5 Oscars in total after the one he won in 2018 for The Favourite.
The biggest accolade at this year’s Oscars for Poor Things was the Oscar for Best Actress, won by Lanthimos’ muse, Emma Stone, for her stunning performance as Bella Baxter, a medieval heroine with a woman’s body and a baby’s brain who travels the world fighting for the right to female empowerment. She stole it, literally, from the hands of her thoroughly deserving co-nominee, Lily Gladstone, the first native actress ever nominated in the category, for her starring role in Martin Scorsese’s The Assassins of the Blossoming Moon.
Emma Stone, tried to humorously cover her anxiety and deep emotion about this second Oscar of her career: “George, thank you for this gift of a lifetime, Bella Baxter” she said, addressing George Lanthimos, who watched her smiling broadly and added with a smile: “My zipper is broken. I think it happened when Ryan Gosling was singing ‘I am just Ken’. I’m going to go now. But don’t look at my back with a broken zipper.”
The other three Oscars for “Poor Things” were won in the main technical categories, Set Design, Costume Design and Makeup – Makeup. Wins that were far from easy as they were up against some very tough competition. That is why George Lanthimos’ run at this year’s Oscars should be considered extremely successful.