Director Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone have teamed together on the big screen once more. Set in Victorian London, Poor Things tells the story of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a young woman who curiously behaves like a toddler. This is because she was found deceased by associates of Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), whom Bella calls “God”, who then brought her back the life by implanting the brain of her unborn child into her skull. God soon hires a young assistant Dr. McCandles (Ramy Youssef) who falls in love with Bella and proposes to her. Before they can marry, playboy lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) seduces Bella and whisks her away on a whirlwind adventure. While away on holiday, Bella learns what it means to be a woman in the world and soon finds herself seeking to find how she fits into it all.
Bella’s creation, both in theory and in its literal depiction during the film’s flashback scene of God’s surgery on her corpse, evokes the mad scientist’s creature manipulation cinematic tradition of Frankenstein’s monster and the Machine-Man from the 1927 silent masterpiece Metropolis. The adventures which Bella embarks upon as she discovers herself and the world, first within the confines of his mansion and then while traversing the world, makes Poor Things an entertaining and fascinating watch during its first half with much of this attributed to Stone’s fantastic performance. The actress portrays a child encased within an adult body at each stage of her development from barely being able to speak or walk to curious and inquisitive to burgeoning independence and defiance convincingly, changing both her physicality and speech to mirror where Bella is at that precise moment in the script. It’s a transformative turn in every sense of the word that somehow lives up to the pre-release hype Stone received in the lead up to Poor Things‘ debut and is sure to garner her awards nominations throughout the season. Even more than just Stone’s performance however, the humor and charm of seeing what is essentially a child bumble about her surroundings learning how to navigate life makes the early moments of the film work to keep the audience entranced as it becomes introduced to the character and the premise of the film’s story. Poor Things is a dramedy with an out there, sci-fi twist and and the comedy part of the equation is deployed in the film to make up for its weirder, more inaccessible elements, these initial moments are therefore integral in ensuring that this balancing act gets off to a successful start so the audience isn’t lost at the outset and director Yorgos Lanthimos pulls it off here.
Indeed, once Bella leaves the only home she has ever known and enters the larger world, Poor Things‘ social commentary on the social constraints that women face begins. Lanthimos marks this transition visually by changing the film from black-and-white cinematography to color, but the treatment and situations that Bella encounters during her European voyage with Duncan Wedderburn are more dark than anything. Bella is thrust into a world where she witnesses inequality for the first time, incredulous that anyone would think to do anything else but give up anything they had to help those in need, and also learns about the position women of the world are in where men seek to control them, particularly in the area of sex. Bella has learned to enjoy sex on her own terms due to the sheltered nature of God’s home, free of the conventions surrounding it that are placed upon women in the areas of chastity and modesty. Learning how out of step her initial experience was has a radicalizing effect. Poor Things is uncompromising in its depiction of sex which may turn some viewers off, but it’s frank depiction accentuates the film’s theme of Bella’s awakening and her determination to take control of her life and draw boundaries when the time to do so arises. Sex isn’t used as gratuitous titilation here, but instead to make the point about control, power, and who wields it. Bella learns to turn the sexual constraints placed upon women on their head to take control of her life in a world where women are controlled through customs, finance, familial ties, and various other means. A focus on the subtext of what is shown rather than the images and scenes themselves should make this clear for the audience.
As engaging as Poor Things’ is narratively, the film’s cinematography may even surpass the quality of its script and the performances of its ensemble. The production design and camerawork crafted by its team creates an authentic, period feel that instantly vaults Poor Things to the top of the list among all films released this year. Its classic film aesthetic is achieved through various means such as the frequent use of the peephole effect and fish eye lenses by Lanthimos and director of photography Robbie Ryan craft in shots throughout the film. The film’s set design of the European and African backgrounds and landscapes during Bella’s journey evoke the look of early silent films like the aforementioned Metropolis or Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon. Colorful, popping off of the screen, and looking handmade rather than computer generated, they are striking to see and make Poor Things a visual smorgasbord.
Poor Things will be a challenging film to watch for many given its uncompromising view of sex and premise of a childlike woman who is taken advantage of to begin the film. Despite this, the script uses what is uncomfortable to examine and challenge societal norms, buoyed by an incredible performance from Emma Stone and strong supporting roles from Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe among others. From Bella calling her creator and father-like figure “God” to her overall journey of self-discovery, it is clear this film is meant to document the lifelong experiences women have as they mature and are thrust into the constraints placed upon their sex. Despite the usual offbeat style of director Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things is an engaging film that explores this theme in an entertaining way that separates it from its contemporaries that have sought to say the same through more conventional means.
Image: Searchlight Pictures
