How to describe the particular joy one feels when Willem Dafoe—that unusual actor who has been a consistent presence in fascinating and intelligent films for the last 40 years—pops up on the screen? The question lingers after seeing Poor Things, the new movie from director Yorgos Lanthimos. It’s a casting match that feels so right it’s funny it took them this long: Lanthimos’s own creative ethos and trajectory in some ways mirror Dafoe’s, through both a penchant for the absurd and an agility at moving in and out of the mainstream. Lanthimos has directed everything from demanding black comedies like Dogtooth to the more accessibly witty The Favourite; and with Poor Things, a surreal but ultimately sweet take on a classic Hollywood bildungsroman, he has made something just approachable enough that it could attract his biggest audiences yet—without sacrificing what makes him remarkable.