My Review of Poor Things (2023)

 

Written by Tony McNamara

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Bella: "I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence."

Making my way through more of the recent award contenders brought me to what might be the weirdest and by far, the wildest movie of the bunch. Yes, I finally watched Poor Things.

What felt like an acid trip that lasted 142 minutes saw Emma Stone as Bella Baxter. Bella's a strange woman with a childlike sense of wonder and a serious lack of filter while being looked after by her "God" father, Dr Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Her eccentricities also attracted the likes of Godwin's assistant, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) and sleazy cad/lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo).

Even though Bella had become betrothed to Max earlier in the movie, it didn't stop Godwin from letting Bella explore the world with Duncan. Bella went from discovering self pleasure to doing a lot of furious jumping with Duncan as they boarded a ship that ended up causing a lot of problems for the mismatched pair.

It's not often that you get to see Mark Ruffalo play a villain and I have to admit that Duncan's more snivelling and pathetic than actually menacing. Granted,  Duncan's openly threatened by Bella making friends with fellow passengers such as Martha (Hanna Schygulla) and Harry (Jerrod Carmichael) and one act of compassion ended up being too much for Duncan to deal with.

On the plus side, Bella ended up in Paris and found liberation in the oldest profession in the book as well as socialism through new friend, Toinette (Suzy Bemba). However her connection with Toinette had something more than just politics attached and then the imminent death of Godwin brought her back home.

The last act of the movie though had the strangest reveal of Bella being a woman called Victoria Blessington who was pregnant, committed suicide and had her unborn child's mind transferred into her. Along with that revelation came an abusive husband named Alfie (Christoper Abbot). The comeuppance that's given to Alfie was suitably macabre but nowhere near as strange as the majority of the movie.

Summing it up, this might be one of the weirdest movies released in the last year and the fact that its gotten so much traction might be as big an achievement as the award love. I really don't know what to make of this one.

- A good portion of the movie was in black and white before Bella ran away with Duncan.

- Like most movies these days, this is an adaptation of a novel of the sane name by Alisdair Gray.

- The costuming in this movie might be some of the best we've had. Bella alone had some of the most striking looks throughout the movie that informed her character development.

- Chronology: A futuristic looking Victorian London with trips to Lisbon, Alexandria and Paris.

Poor Things might be the wildest movie I've watched in the last year. It's highly chaotic from start to finish with sublime performances from Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo. I think it's going to stay with me for quite a while.

Rating: 8 out of 10