She’s alive!

Emma Stone plays Bella Baxter, a woman returned to life by a (mad) scientist played by Willem Dafoe in Yorgos Lanthimos’ new dramedy Poor Things, coming to theaters in September for Searchlight Pictures.

According to the movie’s official description, Dafoe plays the disfigured Dr. Godwin Baxter, who tries to show Bella the ways of the world. Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn what she can about the world, but she soon wants more.

In the trailer, Bella says her “brain and her body are not quite synchronized,” leading to some quirky moments as she awkwardly learns to wink and dances around.

Wanting the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a “slick and debauched” lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her late-Victorian times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

Poor Things also stars Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, Mary Qualley and Christopher Abbott. Lanthimos, known for lensing avant garde films, has been nominated for three Academy Awards. His credits also include The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Dogtooth.

Tony McNamara, the writer of The Favourite, for which Stone earned an Academy Award nomination,  penned the screenplay. The movie is not actually a reworked version of the classic novel Frankenstein; the script is based on Scottish author Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel about a woman who drowns herself to escape her abusive husband and is resurrected with the brain of her unborn child. 

Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe’s Element Pictures and Film4, the production team behind The Favourite, will produce along with Stone and Lanthimos.

Poor Things opens September 8th in theaters.