In Director Yorgos Lathimos’s Poor Things, Emma Stone is powerful force and sublime innocence as Bella, the grown woman implanted with a child’s brain. In Variety Actors on Actors, Emma whimsical said, “She (Bella) is a metaphor.” Bella is the experiment of genius, tortured, and disfigured Dr. Godwin (God) Baxter, played by prostheticed Willem Dafoe. He created Bella bringing her back to life. Tony McNamara’s erratically imaginatively screenplay is based on Alasdair Gray’s novel, a version of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. In Poor Things, Yorgos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan create the vibrantly stunning pasteled multiverse of the 1930’s. Theirs is not our universe.
Naïve Bella is literally suit-cased away to Lisbon by self-absorbed jerk Duncan Wedderburn, played by hysterically ironic Mark Ruffalo, who uses her for sex. Aboard her cruise ship, Bella’s kind friend Harry, played by charismatic Jerod Carmichael, asks why she stays with Wedderburn, who treats her with great disrespect. As Bella, Emma’s eyes brighten, “I believe that things will get better…” Not abuse victim speak. Rather, Bella’s possibility of inventing the greater-than version of herself. Poor Things is Bella’s journey of self-creation and invention. Perhaps, the noblest of all pursuits.
Despite the narrative diversion into raw, gratuitous sex, albeit mostly comically tedious, Poor Things is about human transformation in the world that Bella describes as “sugar and violence”. Her child’s mind still sees the wonder and beauty in the world amidst the glaring bad and ugly. Yorgos’s Poor Things is something very special. Emma Stone as Bella is very special, too. In Emma’s amazing performance, Bella isn’t the ignorant optimist. She gets the inherent ugliness in life. It’s her strength inside and the belief in herself that keeps her moving forward, becoming the best that she can be. That’s inspired.
Godwin informs his student observer Max, played by kind spirited Ramy Youssef, that Bella’s body and brain aren’t yet synchronized. Emma brilliantly modulates Bella’s hilarious staccato walk as she transforms into humanity. It’s nuanced evolution like Bella herself. Bella’s mind transforms too opening to reading and to the world at large.
Willem Dafoe’s Godwin is the sad poignant paradox. His doctor father tortured and hideously deformed him in cruel experimentation. Godwin resigned in his fate as serving the greater good for his father’s achievements. That is totally messed up. From the experimentation, Godwin cannot have children. His creation Bella is the great love of his life. He has unconditional love for her. In her way, Bella discovers her unconditional love for him. That’s the heart of Poor Things.
Under Max’s watch, he falls in love with beautiful innocent Bella. Godwin sees that and arranges for Max to marry Bella and take care of her. He hires lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Ruffalo) to structure the marriage contract. Duncan surmises what Bella is, then leverages that to his best self-interest. He literally steals Bella off to Lisbon and everything goes sideways.
Invariably, things unravel. Bella chooses to earn money as a prostitute in a brothel. Bella thoroughly enthralls in having sex, so making money for sex seems like a no brainer. In Bella’s mind that is only a means to her ultimate end of becoming better. Ironic poignancy. The world-weary brothel owner Swiney, played with gentle gravitas by Kathryn Hunter, says of Bella, “A woman plotting her course to freedom.”
In the climactic narrative arc, Bella’s tragic past life remerges in Alfe Blessington, played with malevolent zeal by Christopher Abbott. Bella experiences the sadness of her past life and that she was not the woman she strives to become. Emma’s brave Bella stares down Alfre, “I would rather die…” Bella takes her stand in her reinvention.
In the hysterically touching scene, Bella walks with Max in the park. Max confesses that he has always been in love with Bella. Bella admits that as a prostitute she has had many men inside her. If Max can forgive her, she can love Max as she always has, too. Bella defines love for herself.
That’s the true beauty of Poor Things: Nothing is perfect. Bella says, “I’m a flawed and experimenting person.” We’re all imperfect. That’s just the human design. In a sense, life is the wondrous experiment where we get to invent ourselves. Poor Things is something very special for making us see that.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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