Poison

Poison (2023) is Wes Anderson's short film, ready to watch online on iFILM. Seventeen minutes adapted from a Roald Dahl story: in colonial India, a venomous snake has settled on a sleeping Englishman's belly, and the slightest twitch could trigger a fatal bite.

Harry Pope (Benedict Cumberbatch) lies frozen on the bed, whispering for help. His friend Woods (Dev Patel) and the local physician Dr. Ganderbai (Ben Kingsley) work out how to lift the krait off him without waking it. Ralph Fiennes narrates Dahl's prose straight to camera. Anderson stages the whole thing like a pop-up theater — characters address the lens, sets slide away in plain view, and every beat is timed to the syllable.

It belongs to his quartet of Dahl adaptations made for Netflix, and Poison is the one that ends on a sudden sting worth waiting for. A perfect entry point for anyone who loves the director's fussy symmetry but isn't ready to commit to a feature. Stream Poison (2023) online on iFILM.