Poison (II) (2023) User Reviews

Turns out Wes is great at tension

[masonsaul · 8/10 · 30 September 2023]

Poison is a short film filled with tension pretty much instantaneously, initially feeling like a fun piece of style over substance until its final moments in which it suddenly gets a lot darker with an ending designed to leave a lasting impression.

Fulfilling the promise of Henry Sugar, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley all get a much welcome second go at playing in the world of Wes. With Cumberbatch mostly restricted to a bed Dev Patel becomes the standout, still perfect with his delivery and mannerisms.

Wes Anderson's direction is always flawless in its visual construction, the sets here remain gorgeous to look at but a lot smaller in scale and the best surprise here is Wes showing that his usual, heightened style actually works really well for crafting tension.

A simple tale narrated in a catchy way.

[fciocca · 6/10 · 4 October 2023]

Netflix for the first time in a long time is finally releasing stuff that I actually like. These four shorts made by Wes Anderson are a small gem in the enormous pile of bad productions available on that streaming platform. The story of "Poison" is not very interesting per se but the narration style is engaging at times, keeping the audience on the verge. The characters are pretty forgettable in my opinion, the cast did not really manage to create any interesting peculiarity. I reckon that Wes is a bit too repetitive. I understand that his storytelling techniques are very specific, but I wish he could make some variations, adding a bit of novelty to this piece. I believe that in short stories such as this one, he should have left a bigger impact, or simply chose better novels to adapt to the small screen. My final mark is 6.

Simple tale, Good Production!

[lucasagustink · 6/10 · 12 October 2023]

This is a very simple story in which we find the protagonist lying in bed and suffering. This tries to be solved by his partner and also by the help of a doctor.

The acting in this Short story is great, Benedict Cumberbatch Manages to perform his character to perfection just by lying in bed and moving his face. I also want to point out the sparks of comedy that this story has, makes me remember that funny Doctor Strange. Together with the other two characters actings, the magic of Wes Anderson and the resources that he uses to sweeten the story and make it Sooooo tense, they create a magic story which is not really that magic.

After watching the other tales, this one shows too much of the story which takes some importance off the narrator.

¡Go watch it by yourself!

Possibly the Tensest of the Four Part Series by Wes Anderson

[KinoBuff2021 · 7/10 · 20 November 2023]

'Poison' (2023) is stressful. This simple set-up of a man trapped in bed because of a snake leaves the audience in frozen state of nerves. The dialogue (mostly narrative) is detailed and given with such an intensity you drift into the scene yourself.

The scenery takes place mostly in a bedroom with the interior and exterior part of the house being movable pieces much like a play would be. The environment is active like a character and adds to the anxious plot.

On the surface the plot is simple and could be as old as time, but its what's in-between the lines that tell a much larger story. Roald Dahl paints this in his original story, and Wes Anderson with conservative creative control further adds to the story with unacknowledged visual objects and scenery.

This film, like the other Anderson directed films in the "four-part" series are all lessons in story-telling. Each having their own in-between the lines story.

Watch all of them. But don't miss out on this one even if you think its just another short film.

Poison.

[khalidmoubile · 7/10 · 22 January 2024]

Poison.

When a poisonous snake slithers onto an Englishman's stomach in India, his associate and a doctor race to save him.

Poison is the last short movie that watched from the collection and I can say that it was a beautiful experience to watch the 4 episodes in the same day, I'd love to get more of these Wes style shorts that takes you right into a story with an interesting narration style and more interestingly the beautiful sets and directing.

I can't stop talking about Wes Anderson, so let's talk about Poison, it was unexpectedly thrilling and fun but I don't think it's his best story wise .

Gripping experience

[adambarta · 7/10 · 2 October 2023]

Watching the newly filmed short movie Poison, I was fascinated how brilliant acting and directing can come together (with brilliant storytelling as well) and create such an epic movie.

The story evolves around a man named Mr. Pope who lies in his bed while a deadly snake falls asleep under his sheet. His friend Woods is there to help him get out of this terrible situation.

The camera is just wonderful, constantly switching views and finding creative ways to tell the story. The acting is terrific, just perfect to the last detail to serve the story. The setting and design are exactly how a world out of a book might look.

Hopes dashed

[grantss · 6/10 · 5 October 2023]

Woods gets home to find his friend Harry lying motionless in bed. He dare not move as there's a highly venomous snake lying on his stomach. After the shock has subsided, Woods calls a local doctor who brings with him the anti-venom. Now, how to move the snake?

Another of Wes Anderson's four-episode short story-series, all adaptations of Roald Dahl stories. The others in the series are The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan and The Rat Catcher.

Wes Anderson adapting a Roald Dahl story seems a perfect combination: the clever innocence of Dahl's writing, Anderson's whimsical, stylised direction. It's been done before, to great effect; 'Fantastic Mr Fox' (2009) was brilliant.

Poison is similar to the other three short films in the series in that it contains narration with the narrator talking in short, bullet-point-like sentences, an engaging story and some quirky backdrops and props. The backdrops are bit less of a factor here, due to this film being set almost entirely in one location.

The other three had a nasty habit of leaving you dangling at the end - setting you up with an engaging, seemingly set up for a powerful ending and then just fizzling out, sans punchline. This one seemed to be heading to buck the trend but, alas, it is more of the same. There is a half-theme around ungraciousness and racism at the end but it really isn't developed well enough to have an impact.

Interesting enough, just don't expect too much of the conclusion.

well crafted

[Kirpianuscus · 2 October 2023]

After Swan, the recipe seems so familiar, than nothing can impress. Only seduce the precise care for detail, the fair atmosphere, the humor crumbs and the acting.

In fact, the four actors are the real source of interest, Sir Ben Kingsley reminding, for a second, the unique Gandhi.

And the memories about touch of commedia d arte , wise used by Wes Anderson. Not knowing the story by Roald Dahl, I saw it as a colonialist one , in which the white man, after frighting experience, has need of a buc emissaire.

In short, just impressive , especially if you discover it the first from the series of four reflections of Roald Dahl adaptations by Wes Anderson.

Snake or not?

[AvionPrince16 · 7/10 · 30 September 2023]

Stil pretty convinced of these shorts from Roald Dahl's writing and even more with these one. Love the look, the feeling. So yeah its kind of disturbing to have that narration plus that visual but it was ok i guess and that story of snake was really scary at first but slowly we will understand it was maybe all a dream? More fear than Harm? Yes and it was kind of predictable at some point but it was a nice visual experience and still love that style of Wes Anderson. The narration is quite different and inappropriate for the movie format but here in some scenes it work when we dont see really what happenland we have that oral description from the characters. A nice short anyway mixed with comedy and drama even if it will be more comedy than drama at the end.

Not just the snakes, you know - white knuckle comic suspense

[Quinoa1984 · 9/10 · 1 October 2023]

Who really has the poison in them, when you think about it ::sits back and quietly Puffs on a pipe in a scholarly robe::

And so with this, the fourth and final short (for now) adaptation of Roald Dahl by the superlative current distinctive filmmaker of his works, Wes Anderson, we get the kind of white-knuckle pot boiler-pressure cooker scenario that we usually would associate with Quentin Tarantino, including the razor-sharp editing and sickening sense of humor. This is editing that directs you into Benedict Cumberbatch's "Oh bloody hell get this snake off" face for several minutes and the on-camera narration and involved reactions by Dev Patel keeps one equally locked in.

By the time Kingsley comes on the scene, you're in for something that you know is going to kick your brain into the other side of the room, but it's all benefitting from it being so absolutely funny (take off your shoes!) And as mhch as someone watching can understand how pleasurable it is when that pressure valve gets kicked off, it is equally disturbing (but not unsurprising) how quickly, when things suddenly appear to be not in danger anymore, a human being can revert to the absolute worst (or, deep down, truest) version of himself. And that final moment in the car with Kingsley's doctor is rather heartbreaking - mostly for the character's understanding that the status quo has returned, and it sucks.

This may not reach quite the highs of Henry Sugar, but for what Anderson and his cast, particularly Cumberbatch who has not been this intense since the best of Sherlock, accomplish here Poison is a high point in the director's body of work and it is enough to say it's worth it to find on Netflix even if you don't have a subscription (get the free trial if you have to). 9.5/10.

My favourite of the series.

[xnicofingerx · 7/10 · 26 October 2023]

My last viewing and an excellent conclusion. At this point I am again aware of my high regard for Anderson's work and the resulting standing. What director can celebrate such artistic freedom, dancing on the threshold between mainstream and arthouse. Back to the film. A suspenseful beginning, immediately awakens my empathy, compassion. Tension, not a typical Anderson stylistic device, in fact none at all. But it works, it is maintained, also by not playing too many games. Plus an ending with reverberation, finally. At least for me, I had missed that in the other episodes. My favourite of the series.

Intense and rewarding

[roubaalnori · 10/10 · 30 September 2023]

How can 15 minutes around a man in a bed sweating and whispering be that intense? The great Wes and the great Cumberbatch at it again. The way Wes directed this and the way Cumberbatch was able to have such powerful presence and performance using only his face and whispers speak volumes of the talent involved in these shorts. Dev Petal delivers great physical comedy but his narration is a bit too fast for my liking. This short has a great ending and an important message. Phenomenal all around.

I enjoyed this and Henry Sugar the most out the four shorts. I think it's fair to say Benedict Cumberbatch fits right in with Wes. Cumberbatch keeps proving that he can do anything.

Wes Anderson short from Roald Dahl story

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 4 October 2023]

Woods (Dev Patel) arrives to check on his friend Harry (Benedict Cumberbatch). Harry quietly indicates that he has a deadly snake on his stomach. Dr. Ganderbai (Ben Kingsley) comes to help extract it.

This is a Wes Anderson film adapted from a Roald Dahl story. He has released four such shorts on Netflix. In a way, these combine for a full length movie. Maybe that's the initial intention. This is the first short that I watched. The monotone narration does need some getting used to. Eventually, I get the point. We're looking for a snake in Cumberbatch's pants. I can't help but smile at that. Then the short takes a sharp turn and plays the race card. It's a big swing. It puts an exclamation point on this short.

Death takes a holiday

[jgreco7 · 4/10 · 3 October 2023]

Wes Anderson's whimsical crack at epic form, a continuation of his now patented style, persists, perhaps compulsively, in his adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic story "Poison," its third time on the small screen, and, one hopes, its last.

Needless to say, he had to try something different the third time round, after the master of suspense had put his own stamp on it in 1958. That's a hard act to follow, considering a generation recalls it fondly, one assumes even Anderson.

Anyhow suspense isn't Anderson's thing. In a way it's refreshing that a young director is disinclined to emulate Hitchcock. Instead, it's interesting that he chooses to acknowledge in his work the artifice of its form, calling attention to its representation of reality, and abandoning altogether the suspension of disbelief. Using this distancing effect, as he does in these films of Dahl's stories, goes counter to the very nature of film itself, since the first time audiences faced a loaded gun watching "The Great Train Robbery."

Interesting, yes, even watchable, to a point (17 minutes is tolerable). But does it do justice to Dahl's fiction? Maybe Anderson places too much emphasis on the idiosyncratic qualities of Dahl and not enough on the substance, which is overtaken, finally, by all the gimmickry. After all, "Poison" is really about blatant racism during Britain's imperial rule in India, than a "venomous" krait, as Anderson's readjustment of Dahl's rather halfhearted ending infers. Reality does matter in the end, so why avoid it?

Devastating

[MattyLuke-81663 · 7/10 · 21 November 2023]

"I'm sorry."

"You can't be."

What an ending. It's so devastating that it left me a bit speechless. No matter the good deeds you do for others, it will be ignored because your race and religion is a problem for some people.

And that brings the end to the daily Wes Anderson's Netflix-Journey. I'm sad that it's over but I'm happy it exists.

Dev Patel, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Richard Ayoade, and Rupert Friend were all terrific.

AI and dumb TikTok users could never do this. All these short films are the finest work from Mr. Anderson. I hope he makes more movies like this in the future.

A strange tale of man caught up in the grip of a paranoid delusion, with a vague whiff of Colonial guilt

[dr_clarke_2 · 7/10 · 26 December 2023]

Another of three shorter Wes Anderson Roald Dahl adaptations made to accompany The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Poison is a strange tale of man caught up in the grip of a paranoid delusion, with a vague whiff of Colonial guilt.

Poison is set in India, a setting captured generically by distinctive sets and good sound design, and concerns a white man named Harry who is lying in bed, gripped by terror due to the venomous snake dozing on his belly beneath his sheets. Dev Patel narrates again and also plays Woods, Harry's friend, who enlists the help of Ben Kingsley's Dr. Ganderbai to deal with the snake whilst minimising the risk to Harry's life. Ralph Fiennes is also back - briefly - as Dahl.

It boasts the same impressive mise-en-scéne and acting/narrating as its companion shorts, with a sweaty Cumberbatch delivering most of lines without moving his lips, as Harry tries to avoid disturbing the snake. Kingsley brings great urgency to the role of Dr. Ganderbai, only to be met with a string of racist bile from Harry once the twist - that there is no snake after all - is revealed. The disturbingly realistic sourness of Woods' verbal abuse possibly lends a double meaning to the title.

Together with the other three Anderson shorts, Poison shows how twisted but also how varied Dahl's imagination could be. The director's distinctive approach to adapting these tales has been highly effective; whether there will be more to come remains to be seen, but Dahl wrote a great many short stories and there are plenty of rich pickings yet to adapt should Anderson - or anybody else - wish to do so.

Deadpan comedy in extremis - artificial but entertaining in an odd way

[jamesrupert2014 · 7/10 · 4 October 2023]

When Woods (Dev Patel) finds Harry (Benedict Cumberbatch), who thinks that his pajamas harbour a sleeping krait, laying still and silent in bed he calls Dr. Ganderbai (Ben Kingsley) for help. Like Wes Anderson's other recent Roald Dahl shorts, the film is highly stylised, with stage-like settings, rapid-fire but artificial sounding dialogue, and characters who frequently break the fourth wall. Not a lot happens as Ganderbai works to remove the snake without awakening it. The cryptic ending, which finds Harry (perhaps delusional from breathing chloroform) verbally abusing the Bengali doctor who sought to help him, is quite abrupt.

The ending lets it down a bit

[bignuts-06245 · 7/10 · 23 October 2023]

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes & Ben Kingsley this is the story of a man who finds a highly venomous snake asleep under a book resting open on his stomach as he lays in bed. Able to summon help, a doctor then comes to his aid injecting him with a counteracting medicine incase he's bitten after which chloroform is then put under his bedsheets to prevent the snake from waking up after which it seems there is actually no snake to be found. I'm by no means a Wes Anderson fan but I actually liked the suspense of this film but felt the ending let it down, that being said, it is only 17 minutes long & it's not bad so if you like Wes Anderson then you might aswell give it a watch.

Don't move a muscle.

[Pjtaylor-96-138044 · 7/10 · 29 January 2024]

Tension is the name of the game in 'Poison (2023)', one of Wes Anderson's four Roald Dahl adaptations to be dropped on Netflix. The short is about a British soldier in India who sees a venomous snake crawl under his bedsheet and must lie totally still so as not to disturb it and incur a bite that will surely kill him. The man's nervous assistant and a stern-faced doctor seek to aid him, all while doing their very best not to make too much noise or move too quickly. The central dynamic is enjoyably suspenseful, and the piece wrings as much uncertainty out of its concept as it possibly can. It's told with the same constant narration and stage-like scene shifting as the other three shorts in its series, but in some ways it feels like the most traditionally cinematic (perhaps primarily due to its widescreen framing) and it also features what is perhaps its director's first ever use of shaky cam to great effect. The acting is also really great, as a good portion of it is actually non-verbal despite the overall affair being unrelentingly verbal on the whole. The ending, while a little predictable in the macro sense, erupts in an unexpected and saddening way that adds a bit of subtext to everything it follows. Ultimately, this is a successful short that's as well-crafted as it is compelling and has just enough staying power to stick in your mind after its credits have rolled.

Much better than Rat Catcher

[UniqueParticle · 9/10 · 4 October 2023]

This is magnificently gripping, a crafty Wes short and well put together all around! Maybe these recent shorts could be part of the nominated award season in best short. So fast paced which I'm not good with but in this way it's great all around. I enjoy Dev Patel most in Chappie this is unique he's more intense I don't know how people do it. The sounds are masterfully ambient one of the best shorts out there! I just don't understand the dialogue sometimes it's hard to keep up with. The last chunk of poison is genius if it was part of a movie I'd say it'd be Wes's best movie all the chaos and abruptness.

"He owes you his life!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 22 March 2024]

Filmed in the exact same style as "The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar" by director Wes Anderson, you will likely either enjoy it or find it grating. I'm not a fan, and couldn't warm up to the static appearance of that picture or the monotone telling of the story originally written by Roald Dahl. I'd be curious actually, to know what Dahl would have thought about this adaptation, as well as the other stories tacked on to the Henry Sugar tale to form what appears to be a complete movie, though each segment is viewable as a complete story by itself. Of the four stories, this one is the most intense, seeing as how it's about a man, Henry Pope ( Benedict Cumberbatch) essentially immobile in his bed because a highly venomous snake called a krait has silently crawled up on his stomach while he was reading a book. When a friend (Dev Patel) arrives, the man calls for the local doctor who has a serum available to act as an antidote to the snake's poison which can be administered before the serpent even bites.

I have to say, even though the suspense built by this episode is of the nail-biting variety, I couldn't help being disappointed by the outcome. Having successfully received the antidote, Henry Pope lurches out of bed with no sign of the krait, and immediately targets Dr. Ganderbai (Ben Kingsley) with racist insults! His friend Woods is astonished at the effrontery, as the doctor hastens to his car and leaves. Very unsatisfying from the point of view of someone having their life saved.

This Roald Dahl tale has been filmed at least twice before to my knowledge. It appeared as the first episode of Season Four in the 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' series, airing on October 5, 1958. Two decades later, the story was adapted for Dahl's own hosted series, 'Tales of the Unexpected' on March 29, 1980. Each of these three versions had a different ending, and so as not to give anything away here, I would recommend checking those out, as well as reading the source material of course.

SO GOOD! PURE ART!

[alexanderliljefors · 10/10 · 30 September 2023]

FABULOUS STORYTELLING! HIGHEST QUALITY OF FILM MAKING ACHIEVED!

Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl fits perfectly and Wes Anderson warm and strong visual interpretation of Roald's short stories is amazing! PURE ART!

Excellent! EXTREMELY WELL CRAFTED!

Again in only 17 minutes, Wes Anderson manages to tell a strongly visual story, with a amazing storytelling and with a amzing creative artform!

Everything just fits so good in this production and its very satisfying to watch!

EXTREMELY WELL PERFORMED AND EXTRA WELL WRITTEN! FILMING IS TRULY AMAZING!

You have to watch this great short film! I truly recommend it! A must watch if you are a fan of Wes Anderson!

It was something.

[marselegan · 7/10 · 6 April 2024]

What you're about to read is from a person who had never watched more than 1 movie from Wes Anderson.

Alright, the immediately signature style of Wes Anderson would show up in the first ten seconds of a scene, and then you'll thought "oh, so this is how they're gonna tell the story."

As you progress, the 17 minute would keep you on your seat till the end, just. We see the actors fulfilling how Wes Anderson wants them to act. It was very unique, but also rather limiting to actually bring the story up.

At some point, there are cartoon-ish style of comedy and Monty Python. However, with the restricted acting, doesn't really bring you that smile, more of "wow, okay, that's quite cool." for the remainder of the short film.

In my own words. I'd say this short film is too straightforward in every regard, but they did it well enough for the viewers, thus it's a worthy collection for Wes Anderson.

Wes Anderson need to be stopped

[kalchomcgradypg · 4/10 · 16 October 2023]

This is getting out of hand. Can somebody talk to this man and make him accept and seek help that he needs to be again great director that he is.

Wes Anderson does not know how to tell a story.

He is master of decorating a story, authentically performing his vision, and generally visual design.

But telling a story is not his strongest quality. All the great work he made was written in collaboration with someone, why did he stop taking help is beyond me. Its a shame, cause this talented man should have never made stuff like his last 3,4 projects which were all a disaster. Its a stain on his career and i dont know if i can take it anymore without it ruining my opinions on his best work like Moonrise Kingdom, Grand Budapest, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Royal Tenebaum.

This amazing short story by Dahl is butched in such a way that it is hard to swallow. Please Wes, ask for help when writing, you need it and thats not a bad thing, its a wonderful thing cause obviously on his past work we can see that he is thriving when collabing with others.

majestic farce

[figueroafernando · 10/10 · 4 October 2023]

Another gem from Anderson in which, deftly, the dramatic genre is carried with a metanarrative dental floss to the paroxysm of another very common genre in it, the farce. True, with the director's style the literary naturalness of Dahl is lost, but those of us who love theater win, even if it is overacted! Woods, the officer who narrates - not at all omniscient - seems immersed in a chronicle of the event that he is unaware of - the super poisonous Bungarus snake - since his arrival in the jeep but, simultaneously, what his speech recounts in "object language", or That is, which refers to the hardships and feverish calamity of Harry Pope feeling the snake sleeping in him, intelligently passes to the "metalanguage" with the presence of Dr. Ganderbai who, in situ, in the midst of a crisis of snake and danger, awaits the metadiscourse of Woods as if Ben Kingsley himself, carrying and showing his hypodermic syringe, were like an airplane stewardess showing the masks and emergency exits of the aircraft, waiting for Woods to continue with the script, which, by the way, is not the script but internal, because the commentary or epilogue by Ralph Fiennes, a transcript of Roald Dahl, is missing. As if the lightness of the drama were not shaved by the delicacy of the black humor, Anderson streamlines the staging following his usual style, sometimes cutting into two frames (that of the neurotic Woods and that of Dr. Ganderbai exhibiting the utensils used in the inert and sweating Harry), in others with a panoramic cameo of rugged verticality, seen from the ceiling that adds drama attenuated to half laughter by the rueful face of Dev Patel's character. Dev Patel is majestic, top-notch.