Uneasy Feelings on ‘Poor Things’

By Sam Bates

Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo in ‘Poor Things.’ Atsushi Nishijima via Searchlight Pictures

WARNING: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

The first thing I did when I got back to campus from winter break was catch the 61 bus, take it up to Murray to the one and only Manor Theater, and watch Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest hit flick “Poor Things.” The movie was released in December, and is now up for a whopping 11 Oscar nominations. If you’re a film buff, or know anyone who is, chances are you’ve probably heard of it. Maybe you saw that ad where Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo casually flirt with each other while promoting it, who knows. As a personally dubbed cinephile and publicly dubbed “guy who rambles about movies too much,” I couldn’t have been looking forward to it more than I was as I crossed under the Manor’s marquee. However, after watching “Poor Things,” I found myself with some very mixed feelings.

“Poor Things” tells the story of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a recently deceased woman who is discovered by the most charming and level-headed mad scientist yet put to film, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Dafoe). He implants the brain of her unborn baby into her head to bring her body back to life with the new soul of a child. Bella leaves her London home to spend much of the movie in Europe after being whisked away by the devilish yet absurd cad Duncan Wedderburn (Ruffalo). While abroad, she undergoes revelatory self-discovery through sex, philosophy, and literature, and comes into her own as a person with her own views on life, gender, the world, and the people around her.

THE GOOD: Emma Stone delivers a career high as Bella, showing herself as an incredibly versatile performer to anyone who ever doubted it. She perfectly conveys the feeling of discovering wonder in life, and is unrecognizable from her past roles in movies such as “La La Land” or “Easy A.” Mark Ruffalo is especially hilarious, and is an easy scene-stealer with his ludicrous accent and laughable bravado. Willem Dafoe hasn’t received much discourse, but is consistently great. In addition to the acting, Shona Heath and James Price’s set design is simply fabulous, and epitomizes the idea that a set can be as much a character in a film as anyone or anything else. Lanthimos’ directing and cinematography is continuously exciting and bold. This is a movie which understands color and aesthetics to a tee, and was probably one of the visually best of the year.

THE ICKY: Despite all of these undeniably wonderful aspects, I am still left with a significant feeling of uneasiness about “Poor Things.” While I have great respect for Lanthimos as a filmmaker, and believe it was probably not his intent, his film feels much more like an unsettling male fantasy than a genuine story of liberation. This mainly comes from the fact that “Poor Things” is far more interested in Bella’s sex life with the men around her than anything else on her road to discovery — despite the fact that she is effectively an infant. Anytime Bella begins to make a real feminist revelation, it is halted for yet another man to molest her.

Even the men we are supposed to be rooting for, such as the kindly Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), see no issue with sexually advancing on her. McCandles is a particularly bad case, as the film sees nothing wrong with him wanting to marry Bella mere months after she has been born — while she is still throwing tantrums about vegetables and learning how to walk properly. The movie tries to explain all this away by briefly dropping in one line that she “matures rapidly,” but the unsettling feeling simply cannot be ignored.

In the end, “Poor Things” is a visually stunning movie featuring delightful performances, but it all serves something that seems more perverse than liberating. While it may not have been Lanthimos’ intent, it is his result, and it’s an uneasy one.