Poor Things- film review
Not so much a review, more an Oh My Goodness!!
We went to see Poor Things (directed by Yorgos Lanthimos) at the cinema last weekend and I’m so glad we did. This is a film absolutely meant to be seen on the big screen. Many reviews talk about how visually stunning it is, but I was still unprepared for how beautifully and wildly creative the designers, cinematographer, and costume department have been. There is so much to look at in every scene it is quite dizzying!
The screenplay is an adaptation of a book by Alasdair Gray. The story is a curious take on the Frankenstein idea of a mad doctor reanimating a corpse. The newly minted Bella has to relearn/learn everything about the world, and her thirst for adventure and discovery, and her wide eyed curiosity and surprise, are what drive the film.
One of my favourite scenes showed Bella discovering how music can move you to dance. Her response to the unfamiliar rhythms and sounds was so joyous and spontaneous I found it delightful. Hats off to the choreographer, who had Mark Ruffalo gamboling and prancing to such marvellous effect too.
The surreal nature of the story was effectively underpinned by the sets. More was definitely more, with little allowed to look in any way natural. Such a stylistic choice can only really succeed if fully committed to, and my goodness, here was whole hearted commitment. My favourite location was probably Lisbon, though the ship was fabulous too.
Emma Stone has rightly (IMHO) won a Golden Globe for her performance as Bella Baxter. Will she bag an Oscar too? I hope so. In fact, all the performances were impressive I particularly applaud Willem Defoe for (for once) underplaying his role, and Mark Ruffalo for stupendously overplaying his. I grimaced at his appalling English accent to begin with, but soon it just felt right for the character.
This is not a film for the faint-hearted. The surgical experiment that results in the creation of Bella is stomach churning (speaking as someone whose idea of a horror movie is Ghostbusters!), and there is a lot of sex. And I mean a lot! If you are likely to be offended by either of those things don’t go, but you will be missing out on something truly special.
Poor Things is a film about innocence, about discovery, about human nature. It makes us question the way we view things, the way we censor behaviour, the way we impose societal norms upon each other, and how seeing those norms disregarded can be both disturbing and exhilarating.
Poor Things is also, very definitely, a comedy. I found myself laughing out loud, often, (which is rare for me, particularly when viewing a film in a cinema). I have to say I was sometimes the only one laughing! I don’t know what to make of that, except that comedy and pathos travel through a story hand in hand, occasionally in stark contrast to each other, occasionally twins. What I found funny might shock or sadden someone else. What I found joyous might appear simply strange to another cinema goer. That is the marvellous thing about stories: the reader/listener/viewer brings their own interpretation to the finished art work, and that response is an ineffable part of the story’s make-up.
Your review makes me want to see this!
Take a deep breath and an open mind and dive right in!
I found the orchestra’s music exhilarating!! Wonderful dancing! I look forward to seeing it!
That we should all dance with such glee!
The most disgusting movie I’ve ever seen! It should have Ben described as born!! Cannot believe Emma no books Stone would make this movie@!
My phone.messed up my text but hopefully the message gets out..nothing artful about this movie!!
Don’t watch..its porn..and disgusting!!
If you were to understand the reason behind the “porn” you would actually understand the movie. The semiotics of this movie are not for anyone watching with a single lens. It is a very symbolic film meant to be unwrapped not just watched.
It is by definition not “porn”
Disagree. It is porn.
You clearly have zero idea of what porn actually is, anonymous someone!
Anything is porn if you jerk off to it
A visually stunning film. The dialog is mesmerizing like a Shakespearian play in modern times. I was caught off guard by the rhythm of it all. Its a horrendous warning to modern woman. Just because a man is a man it doesn’t mean he is a misogynist. Much like Frankensteins monster Bella is grown without wisdom giving into her instant whims and desires without the ability to understand consequences. Godwin is the hero, through all the torture of his childhood he didn’t give into vengeance … he understood that humans are perfectly imperfect. Yes, Godwin does experiments with animals but he does it with some compassion. He let Bella go even though he wanted to keep her, he didn’t judge her and he didn’t keep her captive rather he was the captive of his own disfigurement at the hands of his own father. Bella on the other hand castrates all of the men in her life. Bella destroys Wedderbern was this deserved? Bella breaks the heart and castrates her future husband even in the last scene where she speaks French to her female lover in front of her husband alluding to a secret kept. Bella’s revenge on her husband was inhumane it would be better to kill him for his evil nature than to dehumanize him by implanting the brain of a goat into his body. God, wins in this film… Godwin rises above all the torture inflicted upon his body and soul without giving into a vengeance that most would find appropriate. Godwin keeps his humanity. It reminds me of the story of a Holocaust survivor who upon release came upon a German family in their home near the concentration camp. At first, she wanted to torture and kill them all but then fell the to floor realizing it would blacken her soul to repay evilness with evilness.
I appreciate your review, I came to this website to seek meaning to this movie. I agree the movie was splendidly colorful and the costumes, sets and were spectacular while the music was intriguing. I just think the sex was so distracting I ended up pondering the film’s meaning and not finding it. It would have been a much better movie without having to watch Emma Stone have an orgasm every 5 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against sex and nudity in films but come on!
For many, it would have been a much better life without the complex trauma that leads to such lived experience as adult – not by choice but of default of all they’d ever known. How people criticize the film, is how they criticize survivors. This is my lived experience. This is why survival is so challenging. It’s not what was endured at first. It’s the rejection of understanding from society as you try to navigate your way out of all you’d ever known from the people who were irresponsible with you from the womb forward. This film isn’t about sex, and it is comolex to figure out. It would be challenging to understand if it wasn’t your lived experience.
I thought Bella was going to transplant Godwin’s brain into husband’s body. Apparently, human to human brain transplants only work if one is a baby brain? 🤔
No. Complex trauma leaves you in an adult life with a childlike experience. Where you have the sense that everyone around you has authority over you. Where you feel like a child and not adult like or grown up. Where things happen to you which you have no control over. Where the same things keep occurring that always had – because it’s the norm. Maturity is having boundaries, self control, empathy, compassion, understsnding, having a full spectrum of human emotion and a feeling of wellness and alignment in the body – the lived experience of attunement to ourselves and our surroundings. Inner peace. Capacity. The choices were made in the film and story not based on what was or wasn’t possible; it was chosen to represent a reality for complex trauma survivors. When I began to heal, I totally felt like an infant in an adult body. The things I realized I didn’t understsnd, know, hadn’t experienced by the time I was in my 40’s shocked and astounded me. The alternative beliefs about what could have been and wasn’t done, is exactly the place we find ourselves in mid life only by experience – not by education, in a society that intends for caregivers to educate us. We cannot know what was never modeled to us in the development of our brain. And by then only we ourselves can choose to understand our experience and only if we choose to follow the attunement to ourselves to get to a place of wellness and understsnding. Of course, you have to find a stable environment first, and have the economic means to do so. Otherwise, you’ll die of either age and unhappy and numb, or early in life due to illness and ailments of result of the toxic stress endured the entire life. This was never about a baby brain being placed in an adult body. That’s too rigid of a concept. It’s about being raised inappropriately and our belief system altered from its natural state. With healing you realize this as the belief system is reset and you see the life you experienced before and after. And even that is a traumatization in itself. Shock. The same shock that prevented you from wellness, and protected you at the same time. A duality that only the mind knows if it’s survived such torture. This is why the movie is so uncomfortable. It’s how we felt our whole lives. Imagine the realization that this was your life, your experience? It is to provoke compassion and understsnding; or to mimic the judgement we receive during and post trauma and healing.
This is one interpetation of the film and message. However, I invite you to another perspective of trauma. In my healing, my abuser (ex) lost his power by being made so small and foolish in my mind. They became the poor thing instead of me. I did not castrate or chastise or anything to get to that place. They just became so small in my mind losing their power over me when I realized who I am and what I would never do (that they did) and the experiences they and others had put me through; I became the biggest person in my life, and by default they became miniscule. I actually feel sorry for them. The point being that the end result of what the husband/father was turned into was metaphorical. Not unlike Bella, Godwin is misunderstood as well. He was a father figure, he was referred to as God, depicted to viewers as the one who gave life itself. Godwin was always the subconcious knowing things could be different, it’s what saves complex trauma survivors through disasociation. In the end, Bella was thankful for Godwin despite her lived experiences because it is what gave her life; any life and experiences even her mother whose life was sacrificed for her, had never known. Bella would have surely endured either an abusive torturous life, or no life at all. And so, as Bella healed (from complex trauma) there was no longer a need for the protection of Godwin – the subconcious which is no longer subconcious but concious. She is thankful AND it is bittersweet because of all we know and understand at that stage; and so there’s no longer a need and he dies as she steps into the beautiful life she is meant to have post trauma.
So the premise is that this woman acts like a child? I’m not understanding her mentality being “innocent” and then having a ton of sex. So this movie is an actress playing like a child or cognitively impaired woman that men want to have sex with and also show their sons how to do it? What am I missing? I guess I’m just not understanding what mind could possibly think as a society we should find this entertaining.
Imagine a baby’s brain in a woman’s body. Not understanding or having had learned manners and social mores. That was the point of all of the sex. When children are young they don’t understand why we don’t give in to simple pleasures. It takes parenting to learn that you can’t just scream and yell and jump and run in public. This is a baby in a woman’s body experiencing sexual feelings. When she says, ” why don’t people do this all the time? ” That tells you everything you need to know about ” why all the sex? ” .
It was exploitative. There was nothing that this film had offer except that men want to sexually exploit very young girls dressed up to look like women or women with traumatic brain injury &/or are developmentally disabled and that in order for young girls to understand their budding sexuality they must engage in prostitution, Only Fans, anyone? It was gross, voyeuristic, fetishist garbage. Even Godwin states that 1). being a eunuch and 2). his paternal feelings were what prevented him from sexually engaging with I can’t even remember her name, and I just watched the film, that’s how unremarkable this film is. I can’t even remember the protagonist’s name! Back to Godwin, it is implied that had he not been a eunuch, despite his paternal feelings, he would have taken sexual advantage. Even the assistant/fiance questions Godwin about his motives making himself a “mistress?” Sex doll, anyone? Of course, her beauty is preserved. It doesn’t matter what stage of cognitive/emotional/social development she’s at as long as she’s f*ckable. I am so disappointed in the actors who went along with this mess. Yuck, yuck, yuck. The only thing I liked about the film were dreamy set design and the voluminous sleeves.
you make the right point without seeing it. it’s exactly that: man sexualise, objectify and use women to get their own pleasure, even if the women is childlike. i am not saying all men, but historically speaking a very big amount. and as soon as the woman herself finds what she enjoys, explores that or uses her body as she likes, it is something outrageous. duncan goes completely crazy over bella doing what she wants. yes, there is a lot of sex shown. but it is (in my eyes) used, because it is a huge part of our desires: sleep, fuck, eat. and (especially in porn) we mostly see the second one being mainly about the pleasure of men. this movie is a masterpiece in showing people’s view on women’s free will.
Not always the case. Often the woman does not enjoy it. They become nunb. Especially if it lacks connection. Especially if the nervous system is damaged from toxic stress. She was not joyful about what she did. She survived. It was survival. And she found a way to make it work while enduring and surviving. Until she realized her active part in it. Once the individual realizes that they are essentially echoing the abuse in tormentous ways out of lack of understsnding their worth, their value, and what they deserve and heal the part of themselves that believes everyone has more authority over them than they do themselves – the pattern will continue to play out as they deeply suffer. It’s not enjoyment. It is suffering of result of not knowing anything else. In my healing (I never prostituted myself but I was secually abused a number of times and I equated it to my worth without even realizing it because I did not know anything else before), I have come to understand the limitations I had of result of the conditioning, and the limitations of my abusers of result of their trauma too. Understsnding should not equate to tollerance. And thats the messed up part. We didn’t want it, we knew it didn’t make us feel good, we just learned to cope with it by disassociating because we did not know there were other options available because it’s a reality we never saw. Glimpses of it we didn’t understand because it was never modeled – and if anything we felt envious. And it came accross as jealousy or anger. A lack of connection. Because we couldn’t appropriately connect with the world we were left in, in our maturity. And in healing from this severe of complex trauma, one comes out of the numbing, physically and emotionally. In the end we experience the other spectrum of emotion, bringing us to a new benchmark that’s aligned with the human body, the human experience. So positive emotions, with a positive charge – are amplified more than we ever experienced. And when we experience negative emotions, with a negative charge – they aren’t amplified with such an impactful greater negative charge any more. Its tollerable to experience the negative side because we have so much experince but it’s no longer distressing 24/7. And it’s overwhelming to wade into the positive because its a reflection of the human experience we missed out on our entire life. Its so complex and this film depicted every miniscule avenue at such a depth I’ve never experienced except in my personal life, ever. Feel sickened at the reality – not the individuals. Aide to those who need to find their way out still. Have compasison for the people suffering deep inside every sicko and every victim. We are all working towards a collective wellness free of this kind of suffering and torture. But it takes a community. Films like this are intended to shed light. They however, are found to be reflective of the societal response complex trauma survivors endure in their adult life on a daily basis – even post healing.
“It was gross, voyeuristic, fetishist garbage.” That is exactly what people think about the lives of survivors of complex trauma. This is the reality for some. It was my lived experience. It doesn’t have to be prostitution (it wasn’t for me, but I know others who it became for them) and can, but it was more about the depiction of the inapropriate situations we find ourselves in. Sometimes not even by choice – but of exploitation because of the sequencing we develop that is always a tell to predators that we are poor things who are nothing in society who don’t have support or protection in our life. That we would be an easy target who tollerates abuse Because it’s all we knew. Don’t be disappointed in the actors who portrayed an understanding for those poor things lived experience. It helped me feel seen in a world where the response of most are precicely your reqction here – yuck yuck yuck. We can’t even feel that way about the people who raised us into that environment because after all, they were traumatized too and had no out. For me to heal means my mother sacrificed her entire life – first to her parents, and then suffered in her belief system that their child would provide to them as they did to their parents. I can’t be an active participant in my own undoing any more. But I know that my parents do not understand because they are still stuck in the dillusions of that belief system they were raised in and which they raised me in. They are suffering. It’s torture. The difference is that I internalized the torture, when they and others were the ones dishing it out. All of result of trauma. But it ends with me in my lineage. This film had so many facets that I can’t even begin to describe – but for each one I can relate. Look up the aces score. Mine was a 9. Clearly whomever wrote the book, and the interpeted screenplay are people who wither understand the complexity, or endured it themself. It is sad. There’s no one to blame but the reality itself. It’s not something you can do anything about but correct going forward. We need more community to understand us, before the collective of us can step forward into wellness, as I did. Its incredible I’m still alive – not unlike Bella. And that is an understsnding few can understand at a core level.
Stupidity at its best.There are lakhs of ladies across the globe who have mentally not grown and behave like a child.They don’t know what sex is.And the predators hunt these kind of innocent souls at hospitals ,hostels ,mental asylum etc…The movie is a weird psychopaths sexual pleasure in a different way.If you try to make logic out of this shit movie ,then the society is doomed below the dirty shit.There are porn site which promotes shit and pee sex ,girl put shit on men face and vice versa.I have seen people find the logic behind this also
It was composing the grounds of trauma.
I absolutely loved this movie. I’ve never understood humanity’s odd social mores and often question them. I think that’s a big part of the reason why I enjoyed it so much. The set design is so whimsical and it completely adds to Bella’s outlook on a world that is so odd, colorful, beautiful and frightening all at once.
There is indeed a lot of sex and Emma’s and Mark’s willingness to engage in a lot of furious jumping is something that some people may find offensive. I think there is a truthfulness to this film’s embracing of sex and its grip on our psyches. It doesn’t shy away from a critical stage that all of us go through, whether some of us want to admit it or not. I find its honesty refreshing and it was done in a way that was funny and honest rather than lurid.
Bella’s attitude of being an explorer in a strange land is really how all of us enter the world and I think some of us retain that sense of oddity and wonder even as we age. The world is a strange, wonderful, hilarious and awful place all at once and this film does a great job reminding us of this. I had no expectations at all when I watched this film and I was so pleasantly surprised by its uniqueness. I was also very glad it had a happy ending.
I’ve been obsessively watching this movie recently. It’s odd, funny, cartoon-like & smut. The director likes shocking the viewers. I’m still to understand the eye shots and the black & white meanings. I didn’t like the unnecessary sex but I guess they knew what they were doing. If Emma didn’t take the role, I think Sofia Vergara would’ve also nailed it (not sure about the accent). The acting is wonderful. I particularly liked the scene outside the brothel LOL. Bella reminded me of Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) in The Big Bang Theory. Mark nailed the character. I laughed everytime he got frustrated.
This is a super interesting perspective. It’s fascinating to me that you mentioned Sofia Vergara. She had her thyroid removed. The number one organ that’s damaged from trauma (what this film is about)? The thyroid. And she survived some major stuff. Complex Trauma does that to someone. Whether she would have taken that role or not having certainly endured some relevant experiences – we may never know. But it is interesting you called attention to it. If you haven’t seen it yet, her role in Griselda is stunning I believe is a nod to her background and partial personal trauma.
I felt the same way about the film. Lots of philosophical themes explored. And without the sex it wouldn’t have been as powerful. But, by god, there’s a lot of shagging. And Emma Stone doesn’t stay in her costumes much.
Garbage. So sick of the “fighting societal norms” and “yay for feminism!” She whores it up. Plain and simple. Here is a feed of comments from people trying to put some fancy label on revolting behavior. Self- respecting folk who prefer to avoid gross STDs causing stinky, oozing, itchy, or infested genitals understand this because it’s a real consequence of behaving whorish (man or woman). Women are not liberated by acting like whores. GTFOH with this BS and the mental gymnastics you gotta do to convince yourself otherwise. Too many gullible worshippers of Hollywood and it’s “art”.
اباحي ومقزز مهما سرتم من القيمة الفنيه مهي قيمه منحطة
Right. Complex Trauma survivors are not liberated from the natural consequences of their childhood trauma. And society clearly isn’t ready yet to help us. This film was to help those individuals – not people who can’t understand and therefore reject and see us not as poor things, not as victims – but the scum of life who shouldn’t exist. And what for me when I heal? What for me who didn’t ask for this life? What for me who knew nothing else until I did? I am not envious of your life; I grieve my own. But even now, I understand that I have a depth most will never understand. Even if I wish I hadn’t, I have a well to meet others and help them out which most do not. I dream realistically of a future where no one is suffering, from inner torment and duality as I did and as the film shows. Where children are raised to maturity, not tortured by people who are themselves immature but really good at appearing functional and mask their trauma and their externalization of their trauma responses which then traumatize their children without even knowing it because it’s all they’ve ever known. The future can only see this eventuality if more of us come to understand a new reality through healing what was damaged from the womb and early childhood – our belief system. It starts with nurturing men, stopping the chain of inflicting trauma on men, who then traumatize women who then complete the cycle by raising children with the men they end up with just like their upbringing, who traumatize both their young boys and girls only to repeat the cycle. It’s not just choice for us if it’s all we’ve known. It’s reality. We can come out of the shock. It takes a community to help us. One which took 40 years for me to find. I certainly didn’t enjoy my lived experiences. I suffered the entire time. I didn’t know any better. Either did the people who did the things they did to me. I just figured a way out when I probably shouldn’t still be standing today. For others in my life, there’s probably no hope for them. And for that I feel sorry because I know they are suffering, too. It doesn’t mean I can or will tollerate it any more though. And I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be here for others coming out of their own traumatized daze.
Stupidity at its best.There are lakhs of ladies across the globe who have mentally not grown and behave like a child.They don’t know what sex is.And the predators hunt these kind of innocent souls at hospitals ,hostels ,mental asylum etc…The movie is a weird psychopaths sexual pleasure in a different way.If you try to make logic out of this shit movie ,then the society is doomed below the dirty shit.There are porn site which promotes shit and pee sex ,girl put shit on men face and vice versa.I have seen people find the logic behind this also
This is a story about complex trauma. This is my lived experience in every aspect. And if you know, you know – even the credit scenes with the images at the end, paired with the sound effects at the very end of the credits have meaning and purpose – I was bawling. This film made me feel more seen and understood than even my therapist, more than my spouse, more than anyone could who hasn’t experienced or understood the multi layers of trauma from the womb through healing. Bella represents every person who has truly healed later in life and experienced the intense emotional experience of that re-animation and lived experience for the first time. I don’t think I would have experienced it so deeply if I had watched it before healing, or had never had those lived experiences and understanding. And isn’t that just the kicker? People saw people like me like they saw Bella. They don’t see the trauma, they see the results of the trauma. They don’t see her as a poor thing. Who are the poor things really? If you don’t understand, accept that you don’t understand. Criticizing what you don’t know, don’t understand (Bella did it too before understanding herself) is harmful and damaging. It’s insensitive. It’s about meeting someone where they are, understanding – not judging. And just because we understand something doesn’t make it tollerable. You notice in the end she wasn’t choosing any of those things she endured. Because once you have understanding, you have choice. But if it’s all you ever knew? It takes the modeling and safety and education for one to get there. Most assume we are all born into that, or its a natural skill. As a brilliant gifted individual, I can assure that’s not true.