The Golden Lion in Venice was awarded on Sept. 9 to a hilarious and shockingly explicit reworking of Frankenstein, “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone as a sex-mad reanimated corpse, which had festival-goers in stitches.
An ongoing Hollywood strike may have robbed Venice of its usual bevy of stars, but its strong selection showed the world’s oldest film festival was still a launchpad for Oscar contenders.
“Poor Things” by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos was labelled an “instant classic” by critics. It looks set to repeat the success of his 2018 film “The Favourite,” which won two awards in Venice on its way to a string of international prizes.
Stone plays Bella, a woman brought back to life with an infant’s brain by a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe).
Accepting the award, Lanthimos said the film “couldn’t exist without another incredible creature, Emma Stone,” who could not appear due to the strike.
The film features some of the most explicit sex ever seen in an A-list Hollywood film as Stone’s character discovers and very much enjoys her sexuality.
It brilliantly skewers the way men try and fail to control the innocent Bella, particularly a roguish Mark Ruffalo, triggering bursts of spontaneous applause and riotous laughter from audiences in Venice.
The Volpi Cup for best actress went to 25-year-old Cailee Spaeny, who said she was “overwhelmed by the responsibility” of portraying Elvis Presley’s wife in Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla.”
Best actor went to Peter Sarsgaard for his performance as a man living with dementia in “Memory,” playing alongside Jessica Chastain.
He used his speech to back the Hollywood strike and warn of the “terrifying” threat from artificial intelligence, one of the key issues in the dispute.
“If we lose that battle in the strike, our industry will be the first of many to fall,” Sarsgaard said.
Independent films like “Memory” and Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” were given exemptions by the unions, allowing the stars to come to Venice.
Chastain earlier said that actors had been silenced for too long about “workplace abuse” and “unfair contracts.” But director David Fincher, who premiered his assassin movie “The Killer” starring Michael Fassbender and has been closely associated with Netflix, triggered controversy by saying he understood “both sides.”
