The star ofPoor Thingsis a master at playing characters who are only halfway out of the cocoon.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
This article was originally published on December 22, 2023.
Its a split-second reveal of the machinery behind preternatural charisma.
Stone has always known how to let you in on a metamorphosis.
She doesnt disappear into her roles; she makes you aware of the games her characters are playing.
InAll About Eveterms, shes Bette Davis and shes Anne Baxter.
More recently, though, she has expanded into roles that distort these tropes.
Thats where Stone excels.
Easy Atook Stone to a new echelon.
Stone kept on doing comedies.
AfterAloha,Stones prospects looked uncertain.
Studio comedies were on the wane.
She wasnt an obvious choice for dramas, nor was she an indie darling.
But Stone picked up a part inLa La Land,Damien Chazelles reconstructed Hollywood love-story musical.
As Mia, a barista and wannabe actress, Stone portrayed the apotheosis of a striver.
Stone had her Oscar, but where do you go from there?
She didBattle of the Sexesand NetflixsManiac,a curio of a series quickly buried by algorithmic churn.
Lanthimos pushes the camera toward Stones face, the candlelight bringing out its shadows.
The Favouriteunlocked a darkness in Stones performances.
While she had always made her characters self-aware, she began to lean harder into deviousness and delusion.
InThe Curse,her character Whitneys belief in her own charm is just one of her many self-deceptions.
Whitney wants her show to be calledGreen Queen.She is convinced that she deserves what would amount to HGTV stardom.
They collapse into giggles.
InPoor Things,Stone performs the most literal kind of becoming.
Shes gloriously uninhibited in the bedroom or while scarfing down her first pastel de nata.
On the dance floor with Mark Ruffalo, she cavorts like a Victorian Raggedy Ann.
The film invites allegorical readings.
But its also, of all Stones metamorphoses, one of the simplest and the most internal.
Olive, Mia, Abigail, and even Whitney long for social acceptance.
Bellas hunger, in the end, isnt social.
What she wants from life is pleasure and knowledge, especially of her bodys forgotten history.
Shes trying to become herself.
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
