Poor Things: A Debatable Film

 

 

A rare shot of Emma Stone clothed!

Poor Things (2023/24)

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Searchlight, 142 minutes, R (graphic nudity and sex, language, gore)

★★★

 

Poor Things is a hard film to review. It has been hailed as a masterpiece, hysterical, and an instant classic. It has also been excoriated as pornographic, appalling, and garbage. It’s never boring, yet each assessment has merit. The only thing I’ll say for certain is that it takes intellectual gymnastics to argue the title makes sense for either Alasdair Gray’s book or the movie.

 

At heart it’s an inversion of Frankenstein. What if Mary Shelley’s monster survived and like his creator, became a celebrated surgeon who privately conducts macabre experiments? In Poor Things, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) looks the part of the monster minus the electrodes. He is square-jawed with a face scarred as if a drunkard tried to carve mosaics into it. Baxter has fame, a well-appointed estate, and a meek but enthusiastic assistant, Max McCandles (Ramy Yousesef). In his spare time, Baxter has fashioned a potential companion, Bella (Emma Stone).

 

Bella’s story begins when she throws herself off a bridge into the Thames. Her body is brought to Godwin’s lab, the first of many times we see Stone’s naked body. She is dead, but is with child. Godwin removes her brain and replaces it with that of the still-viable fetus in the belief that his hybrid creation will rapidly mature. You can imagine how some might feel about an infant in Emma Stone’s body. Godwin places her under Max’s tutelage and presses him to consider her a future bride when she gains coordination and an adult mind. Yet Godwin–whom Bella calls “God” for more than a shorthand reason–admits his own yearning for her. If only he weren’t a eunuch–because why would such a creature as he need male tackle?  

 

The opening of the film is in black and white, but it goes to color about the time Bella discovers the pleasures of masturbation. She is developing fast, but there is no jumpstarting the fact that Bella has no experience with social graces. Not that the lecherous Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) notices; he sees only her surface beauty.  Bella likes to touch herself, but she really likes “jumping:” coitus. She is easily persuaded to run away with Duncan so she can have lots of it. Their journey takes them to Lisbon, Alexandria, Marseilles, and Paris before Duncan is a broken man. At each step, Bella’s mind and awareness advance as Godwin anticipated, but she remains id-driven.

 

When Bella needs money to return to London, she has no problem turning to prostitution in a house run by the head-to-toe tattooed Madame Swiney (Kathryn Hunter). She also forms several (ahem!) attachments to Toinette (Suzy Bemba). Through it all Max remains ready to wed Bella. If only General Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott), her husband from her pre-bridge-leaping days hadn’t showed up. Can any of these jumpings be saved? 

 

Poor Things is like Fifty Shades of Gray crossed with Gothic surrealism. It is visually gorgeous. Director Yorgos Lanthimos–he of the equally weird The Lobster–presents London as steampunk Victorianism. He enhances off-kilter themes via liberal use of fisheye lenses and gauzy shots that mirror its moral ambiguity. Beauty and ugliness are similarly up for grabs: Stone’s body and relative innocence are juxtaposed with the simian-like Swiney and the cynicism of fellow ship passenger Harry Astley (Jerrod Carmichael). Not to mention potentially off-putting things such as bloody operations, discussion of genital mutilation, and revenge served strangely.  

 

Stone won a Best Actress Oscar for a role that was physically demanding on many levels, not just spending most of the film unclothed. It’s an open and debatable question, though, whether she should have been honored for a film so many found offensive. I actually found Dafoe’s performance more affecting in advancing contemplation of what constitutes a monster. It is a well-acted film across the board except for Mark Ruffalo whose appeal eludes me. He was supposed to be outrageous but, as usual, he goes over the top.

 

My rating is the coward’s path. I adored the visual impact of Poor Things, admired the new take on Frankenstein, and found it very funny in places. Yet it is indeed a male gaze film–though there’s plenty of male nudity as well–and is often degrading and stomach-churning. As a sex comedy, it’s not in the same galaxy as Doris Day. Or even Meg Ryan.

 

Rob Weir