Featured Image Credit: Searchlight Pictures
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV
Katherine Sidnell
Emma Stone has received an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival.
The La La Land actor got the greatest accolade for her latest film Poor Things, which premiered at the prestigious event on Friday (1 September).
Take a look at the trailer below:
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But whilst it might have been a pretty high-brow affair, the avant-garde film has some rather NSFW sex scenes.
As the trailer suggests, Poor Things is a Frankenstein-esq story with Stone as the cobbled-together creature.
Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, it sees the Oscar winner star as Bella Baxter – a young woman who dies only to be revived by a surgeon (Willem Dafoe).
Instead of just bringing the deceased woman back though, the scientist decides to swap out her brain for that of a baby’s. (Yes, really).
And if that weren’t weird enough, the movie has some rather graphic sex scenes including one where Bella uses a piece of fruit to, um, pleasure herself. (You get the picture.)
Though it may sound a little bizarre, the film has electrified audiences at the Venice Film Festival.
Not only have reviewers raved about the film, audiences at the highly respected festival gave Stone a huge standing ovation which lasted for eight minutes, Variety reports.
Sadly though, she and co-stars Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo were not able to enjoy the film’s reception – due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Whilst they might have not been present at the film’s premiere, director Yorgos Lanthimos praised the cast’s performance.
Speaking in a press conference, he said that the Amazing Spiderman star had to have ‘no shame’ when it came to the intimate scenes.
He also added that sex and exploration had been big themes in the original novel so he wanted to translate that onto the big screen.
Lanthimos said: “…it was very important for me to not make a film that would be prudish, because that would be like completely betraying the main character.
“We had to be confident Emma had to have no shame about her body, nudity, engaging in those scenes and she understood that right away.”
“The great thing about me and Emma is that we have made four films together; there is a shorthand and we can communicate without having to explain or talk too much about things,” he added.
“So as soon as I started saying something about sex, she would say, ‘Yes, of course, it’s Bella. We will do what we need to do’.”
Lanthimos also praised the film's intimacy coordinator, Elle McAlpine, who 'made everyone feel very comfortable'.
But sadly, Stone’s fans won’t get to see the film for a while yet – as, according to Deadline, it’s release date has been pushed back to December due to the ongoing actors’ strike.