Poor Things - Criminally Abhorrent
Poor things, starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willam Dafoe, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Tony McNamara and Alasdair Gray, is a phenomenally abhorrent film that is both equal parts baffling and disturbing that it was even made. Rarely, if ever, have I reacted so very strongly to a film, however, in this case, it is well earned.
Taking place in Victorian London, IMDB describes the film as this.
“The incredible tale about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter(Emma Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.(Willam Dafoe)”
Is as carefully misleading as it is brief.
This film is marketed as a “woman’s sexual awakening”, her “growth into her own sexual awareness, acceptance and independence.” What transpires in vibrant and over saturated colors and vignettes before you though, is a horrific display of closeted pedophelic fantasy.
Willam Dafoe plays the eccentric and experimental scientist, Dr. Baxter. Obviously heavily physically deformed and mangled, he has used his knowledge and experimental ability to function with his extensive and serious impediments. He comes across the body of a pregnant woman in the Thames who, in despair and desperation, had thrown herself over the bridge. Dr. Baxter takes her back to his laboratory to see if he is able to resuscitate her.
Baxter is able to resuscitate the woman’s body, however, her brain wasn’t functioning. Conversely, the infant’s in her womb was viable, but the body was not.
This gave Godwin the baffling notion to take the unborn baby’s brain and put it into the skull of its dead mother. Try to forget the logistics and physics for a moment. They don’t live in this movie.
Over a year or so, Godwin cares for his creation that he names Bella. He teaches her to speak, eat, etc. When she discovers what happens when she touches herself down below, suddenly she can’t stop. Ever. At the breakfast table, dinner table… it’s absolutely in your face and constant.
Once she meets Mark Rufflao’s manipulative and womanizing character, Duncan Wedderburn, she runs away with him on a ship to Italy and discovers coitus, or “furious jumping” as her CHILD BRAIN calls it. She realizes that she loves it and absolutely can’t get enough of it. While enjoying the benefits of Wedderburn’s wealth, they happen upon a collection of poor forced to live on the beach below. Barely clothed in tatters and no food. Bella wants to help them and voices her sadness for them by uttering “Poor Things”. That’s where the title came from. That.
Bella returns to their quarters and finds where Wedderburn keeps his money, she takes it and gives it to the poor wretches. But, Wedderman has a gambling problem and without the money they can’t stay on the ship. Bella remember’s she can make money from “furious jumping” and decides to rectify the situation for poor Wedderburn. She enjoys the act so much anyway that she will couple with anyone and everyone for free. This seems like a win-win scenario for Bella. Alas, not so much for Wedderburn who ditches her in Italy.
Not really caring whether Wedderburn left or not, Bella takes up residence at the local brothel and happily takes on an endless multitude of clients. At this point, Emma Stone has been full frontal nude the majority of the film, and now we get to watch her with a litany of, honestly, sweaty, disgusting, dirty, hideous men.
You keep waiting for the actual movie to start, a plot to reveal itself. And Then Bella returns to London and learns she is a two year old in the body of her dead(?) mother who killed herself. And that’s basically it.
That’s the plot of the film. A mad scientist takes the brain of a BABY, puts it in the skull of her dead mother, and she becomes an insatiable nymphomaniac.
It’s absolutely an abhorrent and repugnant concept. To see so much marketing heralding this as “revolutionary”, “Masterpiece”, “avantgarde” is revolting and demeaning to audiences.
She is a CHILD. She has the mental capacity and age of a toddler! Yet she is shown engaging constantly in sexual acts and begging for more.
Despite what their PR firm and filmmakers will tell you this is absolutely not a film about a “young woman’s stand for equality and liberation”. This is a blatant and repulsive reach towards normalizing pedophelic desires.
This movie scarred me so much, that it has permanently tainted my view of the talent in the cast. I am shocked and disheartened that anyone would sign on for something so evil and loathsome and will never be able to see those actors in a positive light, ever again.
Everyone who worked on this project, signed on knowing what this project was, and stayed after they did, should be on a watch list and possibly, probably locked up. The fact that this “film” is currently winning awards and lauded, sickens me to no end.
Do not watch this film. You will never forgive yourself if you do.
