Poor Things
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writer: Tony McNamara
Based on: Alasdair Gray‘s novel
Cast: Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Vicki Pepperdine, Ramy Youssef, Mark Ruffalo, Hanna Schygulla, Jerrod Carmichael, Margaret Qualley, Kathryn Hunter, Suzy Bemba, Christopher Abbott
Seen on: 9.9.2024

Plot:
Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) is a scientist, doing all kinds of experiments on human bodies. One of his experiments is Bella (Emma Stone), a grown woman with a strangely child-like mind that he raises as his daughter. Godwin’s student Max (Ramy Youssef) takes an interest, and is hired by Godwin to observe Bella and her – rapid – development. Her development takes her to places nobody could have expected, though.

Poor Things is a strange film. Wonderfully aesthetic, lively and often creepy, it is a pointed commentary on the patriarchy that will make you laugh and choke on those laughs at the same time.

Going into the film, I didn’t really know what to expect. The set-up – a naive woman controlled by the men around her – could go wrong in so many ways. But Lanthimos has a knack for doing unusual things, so I was hoping that this was just the start and not the point of the film. And indeed, it is. In fact, Poor Things is the rare beast of a cinematic bildungsroman, if you will, that actually focusses on a woman. Because the central point here is Bella’s growth. That growth is messy but that’s just the way of things.

This is made even more engaging because Bella lacks the ability to not be herself. It doesn’t matter at which stage of her development she is, she is always completely and honestly herself. That makes the story of her education not one of her finding herself (which is what these things usually are about) but of figuring out how she wants to be in the world. She still changes, that is just what development is, but she never becomes somebody else.

All of this is caked in multiple layers of strangeness and eccentricities – from the story itself to the characters, from the costumes to the acting choices. Emma Stone in particular has her work cut out for herself, but the way she plays Bella, you never once get the sense that she is actually working the role. She just is Bella.

There are some incredibly creepy moments here, but the film knows what they are and acknowledges them as such. Even though Bella’s hunger for sex in particular could feel lewd at times, the film always manages to keep the balance even there. It all makes Poor Things absolutely enjoyable in all its glorious absurdity.

Summarizing: lovingly and loveably bizarre.