Dystopian, strange yet distinctly human stories are what we’ve come to expect from Yorgos Lanthimos in recent years. With 2017’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, the director delivered a chilling interpretation of a classic Greek tragedy. In The Favourite (2018), we witnessed the birth of the creative collaboration between Lanthimos and Emma Stone, which continues here. His latest work, an adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel Poor Things, examines the female condition from the perspective of a woman reborn by way of a Frankensteinian experiment.
Bella (Stone) is reanimated with the brain of a newborn after a mad scientist, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), performs an experimental surgery to bring her back to life. As a result, the film’s core case study investigates the moral and societal implications of a grown woman with an infant’s cognitive awareness. Although she is reborn, Bella’s journey to self-actualization is a rapid one that expands on witnessing and experiencing the cruelty, pleasures and curiosity of humanity.
Bella is driven by a desire to understand and her role within the world constantly fluctuates. She begins as the “daughter” to Dr. Baxter, where she discovers how to have her basic needs met. Stone waddles, flat-footed and unbalanced through her so-called father’s Victorian mansion for a nap, or for meals. She dances with excitement and falls to the floor, overwhelmed with the complexities of being alive. She moves impulsively, as if being pulled by an invisible force, or the whim of her own explorative nature. As Stone’s character matures, her eyes begin to widen less out of wonder and more in sheer horror of the brutality that exists in humanity. Her blocking is both humorous and a way to consistently gauge Bella’s growing mental age as she continues on her way to discover the rest of her human needs.
Human sexuality plays an integral part in the film’s examination. Bella’s first sexual encounter is a hornier equivalent to Dorothy stepping into Oz, as this marks the transition from black and white to the film’s signature vibrant color palette. Thematically and visually, sex has changed Bella forever. Just as soon as she develops a curiosity in her own sexuality, so too do the men who surround her. In some ways, she represents the ultimate toxic male fantasy – an infantilized version of a woman with an enthusiasm for sex and a lack of understanding of her own autonomy. While this is an exaggerated depiction of male desire, it is also a satirical reflection of patriarchal expectations of women, that being: enjoy wanton sex and also be easy to manipulate. The sexual aspect in Poor Things evolves to consider politics and varying contexts that put women at the will of men’s carnal demands.
Performances by the supporting cast provide the film with deranged and ridiculous antics. Mark Ruffalo emulates this perfectly as Duncan Wedderburn, a pompous lawyer who guides our protagonist on a lavish cruise through Europe. He operates from a place of arrogant indulgence that seems luxurious at first, but is then much like watching a grown man throw a temper tantrum, and it’s a glorious display of masculinity. The dynamics between the male characters demonstrate a hierarchy that enables Bella’s natural carefree nature, although most of them seek control at some point in her state of rebirth. Max McCandles (Ramy Youseff), the young assistant to Dr. Godwin, takes on a brotherly relationship to Bella, yet he is compelled to pursue her romantically as do the majority of men fascinated by her feminine innocence. This serves the purpose of the film’s hypothetical inquiry, but by far the most gratifying pattern is seeing Bella use men as a part of her own human experiment, which involves rejecting them in pursuit of her own self-fulfillment.
If you couldn’t previously imagine the intensity of climbing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in the first months of life, you might have a sense of what this would feel like after viewing Poor Things. It’s dizzying with the euphoria of simply being alive. One can’t help but think that had it worked out for Frankenstein’s monster, he would have really enjoyed this one.
Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
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