There are incredible Things to be said about the production value of the latest Lanthimos oeuvre, and there are beautiful Things in the film, but for me personally it was not all good Things for ‘Poor Things’.

Let’s start with the good Things. Poor Things is stunning to behold. Production designers James Price and Shona Heath have created a cinematic world that blends the Victorian past with the future, Frankenstein with Star Trek, multicolored skies and intense shades that switch seamlessly into lavish black and white. Costume designer Holly Waddington’s creations, complete with bouffant sleeves and narrow white boots is guaranteed to be imitated by fashion designers from Miuccia Prada to Demna Gvasalia for Balenciaga and beyond next season.

The film is based on the novel by Scottish author Alasdair Gray, a hit in its own right, with the screenplay written by Tony McNamara, and is shot magnificently by Robbie Ryan. The casting coups are more good Things about Poor Things, and they include a kind, obnoxious-free leading role for Ramy Youssef (of streaming hit Ramy fame), a tour de force for both Mark Ruffalo as Duncan Wedderburn and Willem Dafoe as “God” Godwin Baxter — this year’s festival should have been renamed the Dafoe Film Festival as the actor seems to be in every single title screening on the Lido — a wonderful change of pace for American comedian Jerrod Carmichael, a cameo by magnificent German actress Hanna Schygulla and, last but definitely not least, the role of a lifetime for Emma Stone, who plays Bella Baxter.

Bella can best be described as the female version of the creature in Frankenstein. God, as she calls him, the product of his own father’s sadistic experiments, is a surgeon of horror who took the brain of an infant and put it in the body of the unborn child’s dead mother to create a life sized doll. It is an experiment meant to both save and confine the young, pretty Bella. God’s new apprentice Max McCandless (Youssef) exclaims, upon first seeing her, “What a pretty retard!” And yes, her jolting limbs, her stilted speech, her goofy smile, eyes wide open like a doll all make her look like a slow child in a woman’s body. God and Bella have been living in idyllic isolation, separated from the world outside of Victorian London slash future city, surrounded by a menagerie of pugs sown together with ducks, goats with the beak of a goose and other little monsters.

When a sleazy, self confident attorney, Ruffalo, comes into the picture, Bella grabs her opportunity to escape into the real world, only to end up in the arms of yet another man who wishes to imprison her. In fact, towards the end of the film, we realize that this has been a cycle in her life, one started even before she, as Bella came to be. Love, lust, needs and wants are all means to possess in Poor Things and that’s another one of those good Things, in the way it makes men out to be the insecure ones in this world. And Bella comes out as the masculine figure, or what we typically associated with being the masculine traits — the one who is detached, sex driven and holds the power.

So far, so good, you are thinking. Yes, I did love much of Poor Things. But I also didn’t love the long way about it, the film is 141 minutes long, and the let’s-make-a-point-about-women’s-lib-through-endless-sexual-encounters bit. The film is too long, in typical Lanthimos style and the sex is too much. I’m not a prude, by any stretch of the imagination, but after a while I was like enough of the fun, screaming bouncy thing and naked Emma Stone!

‘What would a woman be, if she were able to start from scratch?’ - Emma Stone

Stone is also a producer on the film and her turn as the increasing militantly feminist Bella should earn her an Academy Award nomination. I know I’ll be putting in my GG votes for her, as well as Dafoe and Ruffalo — I find the latter steals the show in typically Ruffalo fashion but also adds a layer of feminine insight to the film. Duncan Wedderburn is us, ladies, when we allow someone to be the center of our world. And Bella Baxter is all the men in our lives, those who run the show because they don’t allow feelings to rule. It does feel nice to see the roles reversed, I’ll admit it. Which is probably why Poor Things has been getting stellar reviews all around.

There are no seriously bad Things about Poor Things, just over the top Things and a bit of a long way about Things. If all is forgiven in love and war, which seems to be a leitmotif at this year’s Venice Film Festival, then I will forgive Lanthimos for taking his sweet time in telling this tale of a woman’s power and all the men who wish to entrap her with their “love”. Its heart is in the right place and the look of the film alone will live with me for months to come. Even if I’m becoming a bit weary of men telling women’s stories and creating them in their shades, much like God does in the film with Bella.

Now, I’m off to shop for a puffy sleeved top, in yellow or pink.