Why I think the film Poor Things is most deserving of all the Oscar and Bafta awards - Gaby Soutar

It’s the most enjoyable couple of hours I’ve spent at the cinema for ages

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 14: (L-R) Willem Dafoe, Emma Stone, Ramy Youssef and Mark Ruffalo attend the UK Gala Screening of Searchlight Pictures' 'Poor Things' at the Barbican Centre in London, on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures UK)

I went into Poor Things totally blind.

Perhaps that was best.

I haven’t read Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, so I couldn’t be disappointed by the screen adaptation.

At least I knew that I loved director Yorgos Lanthimos’ other films, including Lobster and The Favourite.

In the opening scenes, I thought, what have I let myself in for, as the heroine, Bella Baxter, toddles around, Dr Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe, with a decent Scottish accent) burps postprandial bubbles and lots of strange chimera scuttle around a mansion.

I hoped it wasn’t going to be too surreal, because I hadn’t had a coffee and I’m prone to falling asleep in comfy cinemas when there isn't a narrative to grip onto.

Then, the whole thing unravelled, like a skein of multicoloured silk.

The costumes! It’s all Victoriana, with crinolines and puff shoulders, as well as white ankle socks and buttercup yellow silk shorts.

Bella Baxter’s bum-skimming Alice-in-Wonderland-gone-feral hair seems to grow as the film progresses.

The cinematography! The score! The sets! There are tie-dyed skies, Escher-like buildings, an Art Deco-ish cruise ship and dark medical lecture theatres with pale cadavers on display.

The sex! I was very glad that I hadn’t taken my mum to see it, or I would’ve squirmed all the way through. She’s a fan of Gray though, so she might have anticipated the endless rounds of slightly gratuitous ‘furious jumping’ that were to come.

I appreciated that Poor Things was thought-provoking, on issues including medicine and feminism, but could also be so completely silly.

I’m not one for lolling at the cinema, especially when I’m on my own, but I did.

Mark Ruffalo as the lothario and bon vivant, Duncan Wedderburn, is especially hilarious.

I loved his instructions on how to eat oysters and pasteis de nata - just the one, in a single bite - and the man baby tantrums, as Baxter undergoes her journey of self-actualisation and he becomes more emasculated.

Unsurprisingly, Ruffalo has a Best Supporting Actor nomination for this year’s Oscars, and Emma Stone is on the Best Actress list. They’re both brilliant. It’s fun to contrast Stone’s dancing turn in 2016 musical La La Land with her lurching and spinning ballroom routine in Poor Things.

The film won 11 Baftas. It also has 11 Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, and though I also enjoyed almost all of the other nominees in that category, including Barbie, The Holdovers and Killers of the Flower Moon, I am rooting for this film the most.

Now, do I read the book or not?