Grade: (9.0/10)
Poor Things puts the human experience in focus by tracking Bella’s development. The experience is enhanced through unique and sometimes unsettling visuals.
Plot (43/50)
Like many aspects of this film, its structure didn’t follow a standard three-act format. Instead, it flowed through a series of chapters, each focusing on a stage of Bella’s development. At first, we see Bella in a controlled environment under the care of her “maker,” Dr. Godwin. Max and Duncan are brought in to secure Bella, but both grow attached to her, albeit in polarly opposing ways. Duncan’s influence, couple with Bella’s curiosity, force Dr. Godwin to let go. Bella’s subsequent exploration of the world proves enlightening in the best and worst ways. When she eventually returns to London, she’s a different person altogether.
Frankenstein’s Monster
If you felt like you were watching some variation of Frankenstein at the start of this film, you aren’t alone. There are obvious parallels between that story and this, with Dr. Godwin and Bella mirroring Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, respectively. Dr. Godwin Baxter is a mad scientist with controversially experimental practices. His work on Bella is his most important yet. Godwin initially lies to Bella about her origins, but he reveals the shocking truth towards the end of the film. This is an inspired decision from Yorgos Lanthimos. He keeps the focus on Bella’s humanity throughout the film and is then able to deliver this twist late on.
In any case, Bella starts out as an adult woman with a seemingly infantile brain. Godwin and his staff track Bella’s development very closely. Godwin’s home/lab serves as a controlled environment to which Bella is constricted to. As Bella’s development accelerates, Godwin brings on Max, one of his medical students. Max is tasked with monitoring Bella’s every move. Max falls in love with Bella, and takes Godwin takes notice. Godwin offers to wed the two as long as Max agrees to keep Bella under their collective jurisdiction. Duncan Wedderburn, a lawyer, is brought in to draft the marriage contract, but things take a turn when he registers a sexual interest in Bella.
The Journey
Godwin and Max had no way of satiating Bella’s newfound burning desire for sex, but Duncan is more than willing to try. It takes some convincing, but eventually, Godwin allows Bella to go explore herself and the world with Duncan. Their first stop is Lisbon where Bella and Duncan do little more than have sex and dine out. At first, things seem to be going smoothly as Bella is sufficiently occupied with Duncan. However, as her brain develops into late adolescence, she begins to wander in search of more. Her first independent foray into the city gives her a glimpse of what the real world looks like before Duncan reigns her in.
It’s around this time that Duncan starts to develop feelings for Bella. This is a first for him, so he’s not quite sure how to deal with these new emotions. Bella doesn’t make it easy either. Duncan has an increasingly difficult time reigning her in and containing her curiosity. When Duncan senses that he’s losing control, he essentially kidnaps Bella and takes her on a cruise. He feels that at least on a ship she can’t physically wander off. Bella is understandably upset, but there’s enough on the ship to keep her engaged. She strikes a friendship with a couple other passengers, much to Duncan’s dismay.
Things take a sharp turn when Bella witnesses the suffering of the people of Alexandria. This is her first serious exposure to despair, and she doesn’t take it well. How can she be so happy while others are so miserable? She’s devastated by the injustice and immediately seeks to do something about it. She takes Duncan’s stash of money with the intention of giving it to the poor people down below, but she’s stopped by a couple crew members who offer to hand over the money on her behalf. They, of course, have no intention of doing so, but an unsuspecting Bella doesn’t know any better. She gives them the money.
Paris
Bella’s act of generosity makes her feel better, but it enrages Duncan. With no money to pay with, Bella and Duncan are kicked off of the ship at the next stop in France. When they reach Paris, Bella and Duncan’s differences reach a head. Duncan no longer has the financial capacity to exert any sort of control over Bella, and that was just about the only thing he had left in this relationship. As Duncan wallows in his misfortune, Bella seeks employment so the two can get a room for the night. Her quest leads her to a brothel. She has no grasp of the social repercussions of sex work, so she has no problem doing it.
To her, it’s just a job, a means to an end. Duncan, on the other hand, is beyond enraged. He’s been humiliated beyond his wildest imagination, and he can’t take any more. Bella grows tired of his incessant whining, so she gives him the stash of money Godwin had given her for emergencies. With that money, he can get back to London and she can finally be free of him. With Duncan out of the way, Bella returns to the brothel in a full time capacity.
At the brothel, she must contend with an environment that puts her in uncomfortable situations. She regularly discusses aspects of the job that she sees as unfair with her boss, Madame Swiney. Swiney explains that life can’t always be the way Bella wants it. Inevitably, some situations will be unpleasant or upsetting. Bella must learn to accept the bad just as she accepts the good in life. She absorbs this revelation but still manages to find ways to express her agency. Bella develops a relationship with Toinette, a fellow prostitute, who opens her mind to new ideas and experiences.
London
Bella’s time in Paris is cut short by news of Godwin’s terminal illness. In Bella’s absence, Godwin had tried to replace Bella with Felicity. Godwin sought to correct the wrongs he made with Bella, namely growing attached to her, but Felicity’s development pace is nowhere near Bella’s. Luckily for him, Bella’s return gives him an opportunity to make peace with his mistakes. Godwin expresses remorse for the way he tried to control Bella. This is where he makes the shocking revelation about how Bella came to be.
Before the operation, Bella was Victoria. When Godwin found her, she was a heavily pregnant woman who had just jumped off a bridge. Victoria was braindead, but her child was not, so Godwin took her unborn child’s brain and implanted it into Victoria’s. Thus, Bella was born. After Bella reconciles with Godwin, she turns her attention to Max. She tells him of her time at the brothel seeing as it upset Duncan so much, but Max in undeterred. The two are set to be married until Duncan arrives with Alfie, Victoria’s husband. Bella agrees to return to Alfie in order to discover who she was.
She quickly learns that Alfie is an absolute psychopath. She tries to leave but is not allowed to. When Bella learns of Alfie’s plan to subject her to an operation that would remove her genitalia, she confronts him. When he threatens her life, she fights back. Bella escapes but returns with Max to save Alfie. They implant him with a goat’s brain as punishment for his cruelty. After Godwin dies, Bella takes up his work with the help of Max and Toinette. By following in Godwin’s footsteps, she honors him in a way that also fulfills her desire to help others.
Overall Thoughts
This was one of the films of the year. The visuals set and the premise set it apart from anything else I’ve seen recently. Yorgos Lanthimos tackles very real elements of the human experience in a manner that’s designed to make the audience think. He succeeds by bombarding us with a constant stream of juxtaposition. For much of the film, Bella is a simple human with an unadulterated mind discovering a sophisticated world. Lanthimos’ execution of comedic moments against a backdrop of serious topics is consistently excellent. These moments often served as necessary relief from pent up suspense.
There were some solid twists as well. The revelation of how Bella really came to be was legitimately shocking. Alfie hijacking Bella and Max’s wedding wasn’t as jarring, but I can’t say I saw it coming. With that said, the film wasn’t without its challenges. The transitions between chapter to chapter were somewhat disjointed, perhaps by design, but they took me out of the story momentarily. Also, the shock factor of the striking visuals started to fade in the second half of the film. Some of the later visuals just made me wince. Simply put, I felt as if the film was a bit too long, so towards the end, some aspects started to lose their impact.
Character Development (14/15)
The film’s central focus is Bella’s mental development. We track her progress as she goes from mental infancy to adulthood. Her development is most noticeable when she’s interacting with others, and it’s not just other prominent characters like Godwin, Max, and Duncan. Her interactions with them might be most impactful, but she learns important lessons from the likes of Madame Swiney, Toinette, and Alfie. Bella’s interactions with Godwin, Max, and Duncan are particularly intriguing because they too develop alongside her. Bella is by all means the main character, but she’s also well-supported.
Learning the Basics
Innocence is something we generally expect from children because they’ve yet to experience much of life’s hardships. So when they oversimplify situations, we usually dismiss them without much thought. In the case of Bella, we got a child in a woman’s body, so we have no option but to consider her comments and concerns. In the early stages, Bella’s development mostly featured motor and linguistic learning. However, because of her rapid development and isolation from the world, she didn’t learn much of the social manners taught to children at a young age.
This puts said mannerisms into question. When Bella’s mental age hits puberty, she pleasures herself in the dining room. She doesn’t know that she can’t just pleasure herself wherever and whenever she feels like it because she hasn’t learned that there are socially accepted rules about sex. Perhaps there isn’t much to contest about the importance of privacy in sex, but there’s something to be had in the reasons we deny ourselves sexual pleasure. This is especially relevant for women considering they are socially expected to abide by a more conservative set of rules when compared to men.
In a later instance, when Bella and Duncan dine with an aristocratic couple in Lisbon, Bella spits her food out and makes a crass comment. Duncan and the couple are appalled by Bella’s behavior, so much so that Duncan pulls Bella aside and instructs her on how to behave so that he might avoid further embarrassment. Bella doesn’t understand why Duncan was getting worked up. By her estimation, there’s no reason to continue eating something that tastes bad just like there’s no reason to play along with people she doesn’t necessarily care for. What she doesn’t know is that brutal honesty isn’t always socially appropriate. Why is that? Well, that’s for us to contemplate.
Developing an Identity
Things get really interesting for Bella when she’s aboard the cruise ship. There, she starts to really see through Duncan’s negative traits. More importantly, she has her first serious encounter with the darker side of life. When Bella sees the suffering of the people of Alexandria, she breaks down. She can not contemplate how she can be so happy while others are so miserable. Her immediate instinct is to help the needy by taking from the rich (in this case Duncan). However, she soon finds out that it’s not that simple. Because she fails to consider the consequences of her actions, she and Duncan are stranded.
With no money left to hide behind, it becomes abundantly clear to Bella that Duncan is a loser. While he whines about not having enough money for a room, Bella identifies the problem and seeks a solution. They need money to get a room, so she seeks employment. She finds it in a brothel, but when she returns to Duncan with money, she’s surprised to see him upset. Again, she has no understanding of the social ramifications of prostitution. For Bella, it’s a job that also happens to satisfy her sexual desires. Duncan’s tantrum proves to be the last straw for Bella, and she soon cuts him loose.
Bella then doubles down. She takes up residence and employment at the brothel full time. Again, for her, it’s a matter of convenience. At the brothel, she gets shelter, sex, money, and even companionship. This gives her a platform to explore the world as she pleases. Expectedly, prostitution is not without its challenges. Bella experiences the lack of agency that comes with sex work. She questions why the men get to choose which woman to have sex with and why the women go along even when they aren’t attracted to the man. Madame Swiney explains that in life, we don’t always get to do as we like. Sometimes, we must accept things as they are.
Fighting Back
At the brothel, Bella learns that life is to be experienced at its fullest with the good and the bad being equally important. She came to understand Harry’s nihilistic outlook on life. Her time with Toinette exposed her to other philosophies. Despite her newfound understanding of life, Bella never stopped questioning the way things are. She was defiant in the face of accepted beliefs that she didn’t agree with. Bella’s most defining quality is that she’s fiercely independent. She wasn’t going to let anyone or anything threaten her independence. Alfie learned that the hard way.
Bella’s eventual reconciliation with Dr. Godwin demonstrates her evolution. She didn’t agree with Godwin’s controlling methods, but she acknowledged that he had acted in good faith and that he’d done his best to take care of her. It’s the sort of compromise we all make on a daily basis. It’s part of the human experience. Bella had effectively caught up. She found a way to coexist with the world around her without compromising her core values. That’s a level of peace we should all aspire to reach.
The Men in Bella’s Life
Godwin, Duncan, and Max all tried to control Bella at various points of her life. She lets Godwin and Max back into her life because they recognized their mistakes and evolved alongside her. Duncan doubles down and turns spiteful, so Bella discards him. With that said, there are similarities between all three men. It’s how they respond to intersecting challenges that distinguishes who truly cares about Bella.
Godwin and Max’s feelings towards Bella are one such intersection. Both of them develop feelings for Bella that in the context of their professional setting are considered inappropriate. Godwin comes to care for Bella in a fatherly manner, while Max develops a love for her. Both men have trouble accepting their feelings. This becomes especially obvious when they struggle to let her go. When she does leave, they even try to replace her. For Godwin specifically, this is his chance to do things right. He soon realizes that he can’t deny his love for Bella, and that part of his responsibility as a father figure was to eventually let her go.
Another example is the contrast between the way Max and Duncan’s feelings develop for Bella. Max suppressed his feelings because he felt they were inappropriate. Even after Godwin confronted him, he remained reserved out for respect for Bella. The two would get married only after Bella made her wishes abundantly clear. Duncan, on the other hand, sought to take advantage of Bella’s mental immaturity. By the time he develops feelings for her, she had matured to a point where she could recognize his toxicity. He became increasingly petulant and even turned vengeful when she finally rejected him.
Theme/Messages (4/5)
- The human experience involves the good and the bad in life. Taking one away would negate the other.
- Society’s rules aren’t perfect, but without them, the world could not operate as it does.
- We must consider the consequences of our actions irrespective of our intent.
- Major problems are usually deeply rooted with no clear or easy way to solve them.
- “Philosophy is to run away from the truth that we are all cruel.”
- “Protect yourself with the truth.”
- “We must give in to the demands of the world sometimes.”
- “We must experience everything; when we know the world, the the world is ours.”
- “We are all masters of our own ships.”
- “Hope is smashable. Realism is not.”
- There’s plenty of commentary on feminism and consent that’s best absorbed by watching the film.
Acting (15/15)
Emma Stone (Bella) is absolutely phenomenal in her role as Bella. She delivers an Oscar-worthy performance through what is, on all accounts, an extremely difficult character. The entire film hinged on Stone finding a delicate balance between Bella’s infantile mental development and her humanity, and she does just that. She’s well-supported by the likes of Mark Ruffalo (Duncan), Willem Dafoe (Godwin), Ramy Youssef (Max), and Jerrod Carmichael (Harry). Ruffalo was especially impressive as the arrogant, despicable foil.
Cinematography (14/15)
I can’t say that I’ve ever seen something quite like this film. The visual elements of the film are absolutely critical to the type of story being told. They are a part of the experience that can not be translated here. With that said, the visuals were, at times, a bit overwhelming. That’s probably by design, but like the transitions between acts, they started to lose their potency towards as the film progressed.