"Poor Things" is a dark comedy drama film based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos ("The Lobster", "The Killing of a Sacred Deer", "The Favourite") and starring Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Mark Ruffalo, it is an appropriately surreal odyssey of one woman's exploration into her true potential.
In an alternate Victorian London, eccentric surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) successfully resurrects a recently deceased pregnant woman (Emma Stone) by transplanting the brain of the unborn baby into her skull. Naming the woman "Bella" and caring for her as his own daughter, Godwin later hires medical student Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) to observe Bella's behaviour around the workplace. Max soon finds himself falling in love with Bella, captivated by her childlike demeanour as a result of her infant brain, and decides to propose to her at Godwin's insistence. Although she immediately accepts Max's proposal, Bella's intelligence quickly develops over time, which causes her to become increasingly curious of the outside world. One day, Bella becomes acquainted with Godwin's sleazy lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), and he convinces her to run away with him to explore the world on an adventure to completely change her perspective of everything she had known up to that point.
Nowadays, it seems there aren't too many filmmakers left that are able to leave an impression on the viewer based solely on their own unique point of view. In recent years, however, Yorgos Lanthimos has emerged as one of the most interesting examples of a director who can hold full creative command of his films to take his audience on a journey into the worlds he creates and the mindsets of the characters that inhabit them. This could possibly be attributed to the fact that Lanthimos is Greek and the Greeks are renowned for their epic storytelling abilities, which was made known thanks to Ancient Greek poets like Homer. In a similar vain to Homer's poems "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad", the film "Poor Things" shows a layered, sometimes bizarre journey of its lead character, in a story that is guaranteed to shock, amuse, but nonetheless wildly entertain the audience from beginning to end.
Perhaps the closest work of modern fiction to compare this story to would be Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", particularly through the way it shows its naive main character gradually learning what lies beyond her basic knowledge of everything around her. When we first meet Bella, we see she has the mental capacity of a toddler who only just learned how to talk, communicating through broken sentences and the odd temper tantrum. Her childlike innocence of how the world works can be seen in her finding amusement in smashing dinner plates and a cruel streak with her asking to kill a frog she found in a pond. Later, we see a turning point for Bella's character when she goes through something of a second puberty, causing her to view life and other people with a more mature viewpoint.
As she observes the actions of all the people she meets, Bella allows herself to become better informed of what she is capable of, leading to a desire to break away from her confined lifestyle and experience things on her own terms. Upon befriending Duncan, Bella quickly learns she has now acquired a convenient outlet for exploring the unknown, despite remaining blissfully unaware that his corrupt worldview is far more perverse than he had been leading her to believe. Once Bella has been taken out of her comfort zone, the film becomes far more philosophical in tone, as she begins to feel bad for the less fortunate. This leads to her performing what she considers to be good deeds at the expense of her own dignity, including selling her body for others to have their way with. There's a certain tragic element explored through Bella's character here, as while she is clearly an adult on the outside, her mind still retains a level of ignorance that only a child could harbour in situations like this.
Much of Bella's development throughout the story is told to us not only through the dialogue, but also through the film's distinct visual style. Yorgos Lanthimos's eye for detail can be seen in the way he depicts Bella's world opening up to her from a small, restricted laboratory to the large, sprawling cities she finds herself travelling to on her journey. One of the more notable creative directions Lanthimos takes here is in his use of colour, or lack thereof. For instance, the beginning the film is shown almost entirely in black-and-white, save for a flashback scene explaining how Bella died and was resurrected in the first place. Later on, as Bella journeys from one place to another, bright colours and saturation are used to reflect her mood depending on the specific location and what she is experiencing at that time. I interpreted this as a young child learning that their view of the world is more than the simple black-and-white they start out with and that as they grow older, a more interesting and colourful existence awaits them.
The parts that stood out to me the most were when Bella is walking along the deck of a cruise ship and the time of day is used to show her fluctuating optimism. At night, Bella sees everything in dark blue with only a distant island illuminating the murkiness while during the day she sees it all in a troubling yellow, which is intended to show the poor living conditions of the people on the mainland. Lanthimos frames each of these shots like a painting, with the characters and objects positioned in very precise spots to emphasise Bella's state of mind without the need for her to verbally communicate her thoughts to the audience. The stunning visual ambience used here is comparable to filmmakers like Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Terry Gilliam, both of whom are known for immersing their characters in distinct worlds that allow the viewer to understand a character's train of thought at certain points in the story.
Something that will prove off putting to some viewers is the film's excessive use of graphic sex scenes. Although most of these parts do serve a purpose to the story, their explicit nature is guaranteed to make many people feel uncomfortable whenever they are featured on screen. The best way to interpret scenes like these is to assume that we are watching Bella learn more about her physical desires on her journey, which comes as a result of her exploring the type of person she is growing into along the way. Regardless, I do think there were some moments where these sex scenes teetered dangerously close towards sensationalism rather than as a genuine way to make an artistic point about something.
In what I would call her best role to date, Emma Stone plays Bella with such a masterful degree of confidence that it's almost scary. Throughout the film, we watch Bella change from naive and child-like to experienced and mature, not simply by what happens on the journey itself but through the true potential she had hiding inside her from the very beginning. Though her infant mind limited her functionality at the start, we can see that some of her original personality before she died had been preserved during the swapping of brains. This would have been an incredibly tricky role to play given the amount of opportunities for it to descend into a caricature of a mentally handicapped person, but Stone manages to maintain a respectable level of subtlety that allows her to pull off playing both an adult with the mind of a child and adult with real world experience.
The supporting cast also provide different perspectives to Bella's journey, with Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe being the clear standouts. Ruffalo's performance as Duncan is quite unlike any role he usually plays - he is debaucherous, crude, and holds a pessimistic view of the world. This is in stark contrast to the naively innocent Bella, which allows him to take advantage of her as an excuse to corrupt her mind with his own toxic beliefs. Despite this, Duncan does show some concern for Bella whenever she tries to do things on her own without his consent, as he is aware of how dangerous the world can be for an ignorant, attractive young woman like her.
On the other hand, Willem Dafoe is his usual eccentric self as Godwin, the surgeon responsible for bringing Bella back to life with a brand new brain. From a man whose past work involves surgically swapping the heads of animals with unrelated ones, it is obvious he considers reviving a human from the dead to be his crowning achievement. He interacts with Bella like she's a real child in his care, disciplining her whenever she acts out of line and observing how fast her intellect is growing over time. As odd as he may seem on the surface, Godwin is actually shown to be nurturing at heart, as being unable to father biological children of his own is the main reason why he chooses to treat Bella as his adoptive daughter.
As an odyssey in the strongest sense, "Poor Things" succeeds at taking its audience on an absurd yet fascinating adventure with its cast of interesting characters and some great visuals to complement things nicely. Though its approach to storytelling may prove challenging in certain areas, one thing's for sure, it never forgets to entertain. This is easily Yorgos Lanthimos's best film so far, as well as another great opportunity for Emma Stone to demonstrate her wide range as an actress. For these reasons alone, it's hard not to be excited for whatever future projects lie on the horizon for these two. If they're anything like this, we're in for a real treat.
I rate it a solid 9/10.
In an alternate Victorian London, eccentric surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) successfully resurrects a recently deceased pregnant woman (Emma Stone) by transplanting the brain of the unborn baby into her skull. Naming the woman "Bella" and caring for her as his own daughter, Godwin later hires medical student Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) to observe Bella's behaviour around the workplace. Max soon finds himself falling in love with Bella, captivated by her childlike demeanour as a result of her infant brain, and decides to propose to her at Godwin's insistence. Although she immediately accepts Max's proposal, Bella's intelligence quickly develops over time, which causes her to become increasingly curious of the outside world. One day, Bella becomes acquainted with Godwin's sleazy lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), and he convinces her to run away with him to explore the world on an adventure to completely change her perspective of everything she had known up to that point.
Nowadays, it seems there aren't too many filmmakers left that are able to leave an impression on the viewer based solely on their own unique point of view. In recent years, however, Yorgos Lanthimos has emerged as one of the most interesting examples of a director who can hold full creative command of his films to take his audience on a journey into the worlds he creates and the mindsets of the characters that inhabit them. This could possibly be attributed to the fact that Lanthimos is Greek and the Greeks are renowned for their epic storytelling abilities, which was made known thanks to Ancient Greek poets like Homer. In a similar vain to Homer's poems "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad", the film "Poor Things" shows a layered, sometimes bizarre journey of its lead character, in a story that is guaranteed to shock, amuse, but nonetheless wildly entertain the audience from beginning to end.
Perhaps the closest work of modern fiction to compare this story to would be Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", particularly through the way it shows its naive main character gradually learning what lies beyond her basic knowledge of everything around her. When we first meet Bella, we see she has the mental capacity of a toddler who only just learned how to talk, communicating through broken sentences and the odd temper tantrum. Her childlike innocence of how the world works can be seen in her finding amusement in smashing dinner plates and a cruel streak with her asking to kill a frog she found in a pond. Later, we see a turning point for Bella's character when she goes through something of a second puberty, causing her to view life and other people with a more mature viewpoint.
As she observes the actions of all the people she meets, Bella allows herself to become better informed of what she is capable of, leading to a desire to break away from her confined lifestyle and experience things on her own terms. Upon befriending Duncan, Bella quickly learns she has now acquired a convenient outlet for exploring the unknown, despite remaining blissfully unaware that his corrupt worldview is far more perverse than he had been leading her to believe. Once Bella has been taken out of her comfort zone, the film becomes far more philosophical in tone, as she begins to feel bad for the less fortunate. This leads to her performing what she considers to be good deeds at the expense of her own dignity, including selling her body for others to have their way with. There's a certain tragic element explored through Bella's character here, as while she is clearly an adult on the outside, her mind still retains a level of ignorance that only a child could harbour in situations like this.
Much of Bella's development throughout the story is told to us not only through the dialogue, but also through the film's distinct visual style. Yorgos Lanthimos's eye for detail can be seen in the way he depicts Bella's world opening up to her from a small, restricted laboratory to the large, sprawling cities she finds herself travelling to on her journey. One of the more notable creative directions Lanthimos takes here is in his use of colour, or lack thereof. For instance, the beginning the film is shown almost entirely in black-and-white, save for a flashback scene explaining how Bella died and was resurrected in the first place. Later on, as Bella journeys from one place to another, bright colours and saturation are used to reflect her mood depending on the specific location and what she is experiencing at that time. I interpreted this as a young child learning that their view of the world is more than the simple black-and-white they start out with and that as they grow older, a more interesting and colourful existence awaits them.
The parts that stood out to me the most were when Bella is walking along the deck of a cruise ship and the time of day is used to show her fluctuating optimism. At night, Bella sees everything in dark blue with only a distant island illuminating the murkiness while during the day she sees it all in a troubling yellow, which is intended to show the poor living conditions of the people on the mainland. Lanthimos frames each of these shots like a painting, with the characters and objects positioned in very precise spots to emphasise Bella's state of mind without the need for her to verbally communicate her thoughts to the audience. The stunning visual ambience used here is comparable to filmmakers like Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Terry Gilliam, both of whom are known for immersing their characters in distinct worlds that allow the viewer to understand a character's train of thought at certain points in the story.
Something that will prove off putting to some viewers is the film's excessive use of graphic sex scenes. Although most of these parts do serve a purpose to the story, their explicit nature is guaranteed to make many people feel uncomfortable whenever they are featured on screen. The best way to interpret scenes like these is to assume that we are watching Bella learn more about her physical desires on her journey, which comes as a result of her exploring the type of person she is growing into along the way. Regardless, I do think there were some moments where these sex scenes teetered dangerously close towards sensationalism rather than as a genuine way to make an artistic point about something.
In what I would call her best role to date, Emma Stone plays Bella with such a masterful degree of confidence that it's almost scary. Throughout the film, we watch Bella change from naive and child-like to experienced and mature, not simply by what happens on the journey itself but through the true potential she had hiding inside her from the very beginning. Though her infant mind limited her functionality at the start, we can see that some of her original personality before she died had been preserved during the swapping of brains. This would have been an incredibly tricky role to play given the amount of opportunities for it to descend into a caricature of a mentally handicapped person, but Stone manages to maintain a respectable level of subtlety that allows her to pull off playing both an adult with the mind of a child and adult with real world experience.
The supporting cast also provide different perspectives to Bella's journey, with Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe being the clear standouts. Ruffalo's performance as Duncan is quite unlike any role he usually plays - he is debaucherous, crude, and holds a pessimistic view of the world. This is in stark contrast to the naively innocent Bella, which allows him to take advantage of her as an excuse to corrupt her mind with his own toxic beliefs. Despite this, Duncan does show some concern for Bella whenever she tries to do things on her own without his consent, as he is aware of how dangerous the world can be for an ignorant, attractive young woman like her.
On the other hand, Willem Dafoe is his usual eccentric self as Godwin, the surgeon responsible for bringing Bella back to life with a brand new brain. From a man whose past work involves surgically swapping the heads of animals with unrelated ones, it is obvious he considers reviving a human from the dead to be his crowning achievement. He interacts with Bella like she's a real child in his care, disciplining her whenever she acts out of line and observing how fast her intellect is growing over time. As odd as he may seem on the surface, Godwin is actually shown to be nurturing at heart, as being unable to father biological children of his own is the main reason why he chooses to treat Bella as his adoptive daughter.
As an odyssey in the strongest sense, "Poor Things" succeeds at taking its audience on an absurd yet fascinating adventure with its cast of interesting characters and some great visuals to complement things nicely. Though its approach to storytelling may prove challenging in certain areas, one thing's for sure, it never forgets to entertain. This is easily Yorgos Lanthimos's best film so far, as well as another great opportunity for Emma Stone to demonstrate her wide range as an actress. For these reasons alone, it's hard not to be excited for whatever future projects lie on the horizon for these two. If they're anything like this, we're in for a real treat.
I rate it a solid 9/10.