In Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Poor Things review and Saltburn review, she reveals that these two original and beautifully crafted films are on her 2024 top five movie list, with Poor Things coming out on top.

Poor Things Review

Although the insane beauty, outrageous creativity, transcendent performances and the divine originality of Poor Things cannot be understated, it’s not a film for everyone.

If you prefer conservative, formulaic, straight forward, by the numbers movie making, this wildly eccentric vision from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, The Lobster) will probably leave you confused and fatigued. You might even find yourself offended, truly, madly, deeply offended.

It’s a bit of a Frankenstein themed story, starting out with the enchanting Bella, transcendently played by Emma Stone, who is a shoo-in for an Oscar nod.

Bella has the mental capacity of an infant in a grown woman’s body. As her dubiously mad scientist mentor Doctor Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) oversees her rapid evolution, she matures without being weighted by prejudice of the day or a moral compass.

As she quickly matures and becomes eager for experience and liberation, she runs off with sleazy lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), and gets an unfiltered taste of the world, unlike anything you’ve ever seen on the big screen.

The art direction alone is enough to merit a best picture nomination, but the breathtaking originality and imagination elevate Poor Things to the top of my personal list this year. This will likely be one of my favorite films of the decade.

It’s a creation you simply must see to believe. But not if you’re, shall we say, sensitive in that particular way.

Rated R

2 Hours 21 Minutes

If this Poor Things review encourages you to find it at a theater near you, get times and tickets on Fandango.com.

Saltburn Review

At first glance, Saltburn appears to be just another film about a young upstart trying to break into the insouciant, moneyed British aristocracy. But the layers begin peeling off almost immediately, and it soon becomes a compelling film that will haunt you for a very long time.

Writer/director producer Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) has created a lavish world that starts at Oxford, and ends up in the jaw droppingly privileged country estate known as Saltburn.

Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin, Dunkirk) plays Oliver Quick, a lonely Oxford student who has no pre-ordained pack. He quickly surmises that Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi, who also starred as Elvis in Priscilla earlier this year) is among the most beautiful and popular, so Oliver attempts to befriend him.

Oliver’s efforts are so successful that Felix invites him to spend the summer at Saltburn, his family estate, where Oliver becomes acquainted with spoiled and thoughtless characters including Felix’s clueless mother Lady Elspeth Catton (the ethereal Rosamund Pike), her husband Sir James Catton (Richard E. Grant).

And surprise surprise, is that actually Carey Mulligan, who brilliantly played Bernstein’s wife in Maestro, and starred in Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, as hapless hanger on “Poor Dear Pamela?” It is.

Suffice it to say that relationships and motives become complicated, and lives (and deaths) will be changed forever by that potent summer.

Fennell keeps audiences both intrigued and repelled by lush sets and costumes, dubious interactions, and squirmy, can’t look away scenes like bathwater licking, a bloody tryst, and a victory dance in flagrante.

Keoghan’s nuanced and enigmatic performance also fits into the can’t look away category—his motives are suspect from the very beginning, and he’s full of startling surprises. It’s quite the career high for this already extremely accomplished, 32-year-old actor.

This is another film that’s not for the squeamish, but will doubtless have massive appeal.

Rated R

2 Hours 11 Minutes

If this Saltburn review gives you irresistible urge to see it immediately, you can watch it now, this very instant, on Amazon Prime.

In Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Poor Things review and Saltburn review, she reveals that these two original and beautifully crafted films are on her 2024 top five movie list, with Poor Things coming out on top.