The sudden Oscar heat around Poor Things threatens Oppenheimer’s assumed Best Picture triumph. Yorgos Lanthimos’s film shares its rival’s fascination with brutal science, surreal set pieces and a mesmerising lead. Poor Things, however, is also funny and less than three hours long, which is to be encouraged. The film rests firmly on Emma Stone’s excessively talented shoulders. She rampages through the tale of Bella Baxter, a suicidal mother given her baby’s brain by Willem Dafoe’s mangled Frankenstein, with deft physical comedy. Bella’s undeveloped mind and desirable body ignites chaos in a steampunk-retrofuturist Victorian dreamscape. Her irrepressible curiosity and disregard for anything beyond the new and exciting has a fresh subversive innocence. It’s her superpower and it lays waste to every man who desires her in this beautifully drawn tiny epic. Gongs for all – but how to choose between Mark Ruffalo’s superb Duncan Wedderburn and Ramy Youssef’s joyous Max McCandles for best supporting actor?