So I’ve really loved the Yorgos Lanthimos movies that I’ve seen — The Favourite was a refreshingly unusual period piece, and Poor Things was… indescribably what it is. And when the trailer for this movie came out, the general reaction was that it looked extremely weird, which is exactly what I want out of his movies.

So the disappointing thing is that it’s kinda… not that weird. The basic premise of it is that a conspiracy theory nut and his friend kidnap a local corporate executive because they think she’s an alien. And then the movie is about Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone acting at each other, as he has her locked up and is threatening/negotiating with her.

It’s all well-enough done, but it’s so slight. And it seems like Lanthimos means for the film to gain depth from the underlying disquieting question of… is this guy right? Is she an alien? (The trailers really played up this element.) The movie is coy about it for a very long time, doing that “omg wait… no nm” thing and raising suspicions that it subsequently dispels… or does it?

I’m not going to spoil you on how it resolves, but I will say that it really doesn’t matter. Nothing in the film rides on this question — certainly not in plot terms, not really in thematic terms, and barely in character terms. It’s a little mystery, you do get an answer, and it mostly evokes a shrug.

So it sounds like I’m down on this movie, but I’m really not. It was enjoyable, I’d recommend it. But it’s not up to the standards of his better movies, so go see those first, if you haven’t.