Poor Things

Synopsis: Newborn woman explores the world and discovers herself. (Available on Amazon as of February 2024)

Brace yourself. Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and collaborator Emma Stone, as Bella Baxter, present a gruesome fever dream of a woman’s dangerous trek toward self-actualization.

Expect gore, sexual exploitation and a steampunk Gaudi-esque aesthetic. If you think Tim Burton wallows in creepiness–he does– Yorgos L. raises the stakes. And (unlike T.B.), the director has something to say about the human experience. Or at least Bella Baxter’s experience.

Emma Stone is a force of nature as Bella, a woman whose brain seems to have just come online. She’s uncoordinated, speechless and curious about everything; like a baby in an adult body.

Her guardian is Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). He’s a scientist– maybe a mad scientist. “God” tells Bella that she is an orphan. And an experiment. In fact, the doctor’s own father performed cruel experiments on him when he was a child, leaving him with a stitched and reconstructed face.

God is good to Bella. He hires a student, Max (Ramy Youssef) to study Bella and record the details of her days. She totters around the house and garden. She isn’t allowed to venture beyond the premises. Bella makes quick strides in learning and begins to speak. Once Bella has mastered motor coordination and speech, her hormones kick in and she seeks sexual pleasure.

Poor Things is a men’s production, and in spite of Emma Stone’s interpretation, the outlook manifests it. The men are: author Alastair Gray, screenwriter Tony McNamara and director Yorgos Lanthimos.

Bella’s path to enlightenment follows a soft porny trope of a naive woman’s path to self-discovery hinging on lots of sex. In one scene, Bella masturbates, not with an exploratory digit, but large pieces of fruit. She is unfazed by being groped or doing sex work.

I wonder if the director would’ve been interested in an asexual woman’s story. Maybe if she was a nudist. Poor Things is actually too smart to be dismissed as just female objectification; it throws in some studying. Bella reads lots of books.  In fact, she’s quickly getting smarter than the men around her; men who fall in love with her…

Max, the gentle student hired to observe Bella’s progress, is besotted. Dr. God’s lawyer, Duncan (Mark Ruffalo) falls quickly in lust with her. After finishing business at the doctor’s home, he slinks off, looking to corner the beautiful and mysterious Bella. He is a pompous bastard, given to misogynistic slurs.

Duncan offers her a look at the outside world, plying her with an adventure in Lisbon. But first, she has sex with an unconscious Max. Ick. Bella calls sex ‘furious jumping.’

Doctor God is unhappy that she wants to go on an adventure with the libertine and unsavory Max, but he says that she is a ‘creature of free will’ and doesn’t stand in her way.

Lisbon is an adventure. She and Duncan do plenty of intercoursing. He is, however, boring. When he falls asleep at the hotel, she explores the city. Bella wolfs down pastries –who doesn’t like the little Portuguese pastry cups full of pumpkin or custard? People eye her and she eyes people.

Lisbon is recreated with pumped-up colors and air trams. Corners of the city are reimagined with a fey design of bridges and overlooks and streets bookended with skinny stone buildings, their sides spotted with painted tiles. Bella hears Fado music drifting toward her.

At dusk, still meandering, she’s assailed by the sounds of an unseen couple arguing in a nearby apartment.  Like a child overhearing parents arguing in the next room, she tenses. She cautiously steps forward and her eyes get round as saucers. She can’t understand why they are angry, but the fear of violence is written on her face. I mean, bring Emma Stone all the accolades; she’s astounding. And she’s developed a pretty good English accent, to boot.

Meanwhile, Dr. God and Max pine for her and worry over her fate. Bella sets to sea on a ship with a splendid Art Nouveau interior. While Duncan drinks and gambles she makes friends and makes friends and reads philosophy. Duncan, jealous of her inattentions, tosses her books into the sea. She gets more.

But all the books in the world won’t prepare Bella for what she’ll witness at ports of call. She explores stunning cities ringed with persons suffering through abject poverty. Bella’s curiosity and burgeoning identity begin to make room for a growing conscience. But then there’s icky Duncan pursuing her. And someone dangerous looking for her. Someone she can’t imagine. You see Bella did have a past. Or at least the woman’s body she inhabits had a past.

Early in the movie, Bella’s provenance is revealed. If you want to read this SPOILER ALERT it won’t ruin the ending at all. Here we go (or skip to next paragraph) *** A woman plans to kill herself by jumping from a bridge into a river. She jumps. Her body is retrieved & Dr. God quickly operates on her. Now, you will have to suspend your knowledge of how the human body actually works… the heavily pregnant woman dies, but the fetus remained oxygenated (somehow). A la Dr. Frankenstein, he removes the woman’s dead brain & replaces it with the fetus’ brain. Thus, setting the stage for the birth of Bella Baxter. Bella goes off on her adventures, knowing nothing of her origins. ***

Poor Things is weird. And the film’s portrait of its heroine feels dated. Yes, Bella becomes an intelligent, independent woman. But the character’s sexuality seems served up from a straight man’s POV. The camera salivates over the beautiful actress’ nudity in frank sex scenes while the nude actors’ (mostly sex customers) are aesthetically displeasing. Why can’t the men look good too, Yorgos?

At least Bella doesn’t get punished for her appetites, like Hollywood used to require. Although terrible Duncan makes a sport of slut-shaming Bella. He fails. She unapologetically does what she wants. And reports that she’d like to throw the bastardly chauvinist into the sea. Good for you, Bella.

While Poor Things exists in a trippy Victorian timescape, its sensibilities are lagging behind new waves of 21st Century feminist thought. And, while I may not be interested in what Lanthimos is up to next, we can all look forward to whatever Emma Stone does next.

P.S. A shout-out to Holly Waddington for Bella Baxter’s twisted Victorian costume design.

Movie Loon’s Movie Review Shortcut:

Grade:   B

Cut to the Chase: Too creepy for me, but Emma Stone is next level as Bella Baxter.

Humor Highlight: Excepting the times he is verbally abusive, Mark Ruffalo’s Duncan is a great buffoon. The actor improv-ed a tribute to A Streetcar Named Desire to comic effect. Belllla!