If after hearing the buzz and seeing the trailer for Poor Things (2023), you’re headed off to the theatre expecting a quirky and weird, but otherwise fun, funny, and maybe even uplifting film that helps you find the poetry of life,… then you are in for an uncomfortable ride, and the title of the film serves as a double entendre where the joke is on you.
That is not to say this is a bad film and you shouldn’t see it. On the contrary, the buzz is deserved. This film is undoubtedly destined to become a cult classic with a devoted audience, but it’s not exactly what the happy, fun experience implied by the trailer.
Poor Things (2023), starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe is an art film made by Greek auteur director Yorgos Lanthinmos.
If you are less familiar with auteur filmmaking, or are not sure what to expect, auteur films are very “artistic” and often a little, or even a lot, weird. Poor Things, falls somewhere in the middle of that scale.
The Plot –
Set in Victorian era Europe, the body of a young woman (Emma Stone) is recovered shortly after her death from the Thames river by a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe). The Scientist then reanimates the body of the woman after switching out her brain with that of a dying baby. The justification being that the Scientist, appropriately known as God (short for Godwin), is saving something of them both.
The resulting person has the body of an attractive adult woman in her prime, but the mind of a small child complete with all of the will, curiosity, sense of indestructibility, and a total lack of inhibition. Effectively Sigmund Freud’s Id incarnate. The story then follows the rapid emotional and mental development of that person as she discovers herself and the world with the help of a debaucherous and lecherous lawyer (Mark Ruffalo).
Imagine if Wes Anderson and Tim Burton collaborated to create a hybrid of The Bride of Frankenstein and Emmanuelle, and you’re pretty close.
Poor Things has been categorized as “Science Fantasy Dark Comedy”, but doesn’t achieve the level of charm or humor of some of Wes Anderson’s (who Lanthinmos very clearly admires and attempts to emulate), better work, nor does it approach the level of visceral emotional disturbance as something like A Clockwork Orange or The Cook (1971), or The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989). The latter of which is also deemed a dark comedy.
The Acting –
Emma Stone’s acting in this film is undeniably brilliant, and completely uninhibited. Defoe is as stalwart and solid as ever. Ruffalo’s accent isn’t great, but apart from that he delivers a good performance and shows us a side we don’t often see.
The Visuals –
The art direction, production and costume design in this film are gorgeous. Clearly inspired by the Art Nouveau moment of the late Victorian Era that the film is set in but darker. The visuals are heavily stylized; vivid (when in color), but darkly gothic and steampunk dystopian. Again think of the work of Tim Burton but with none of the cartoon elements.
The first act of the film is short in black and white, which it uses to represent the mental and emotional state of Emma Stone’s character, changing to vivid color as frees herself and “awakens” to the world and life in a way that seems borrowed straight from Pleasantville (1998), but the trope is both more subtle and used less effectively.
The Story –
This I think is the weak link that results in Poor Things feeling a little less than the sum of its parts. Based on a 1992 book of the same name by Alasdair Gray (which I admittedly have not read) and adapted for the screen by Tony McNamara, the story is ambitious in its goals, but stumbles over its own feet in the telling.
At its heart, the point this story is trying to make is a feminist one. By virtue of her extreme circumstance, and because she refuses to accept or buy into the oppressive social and cultural norms that she is expected to submit to, a young and beautiful woman is able to discover the world and life in a way unencumbered and unbiased. That’s a remarkable and incredibly beautiful idea that seems tailor made for film.
But it’s a Frankenstein story. Those are hard and grim. While this film strives to rise above that foundation of horror and gore and bring its audience to a place of soulfully satisfying transformative catharsis, it struggles to escape those darker, grimmer aspects, some of which seems gratuitous and more for the sake of shock value than storytelling.
There is also a surprising amount of nudity and sex in this film, of which only one brief lesbian scene is anyway romantic or sensuous. Granted, an entire chapter of the film does take place in a brothel, but there is a lot.
So much in fact that this is something both Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo have been asked about and commented on a few times. While their answers make a lot of sense and are completely valid, if the story is the thing which all other elements must serve, then more than a little that is extra. As we left the theatre my wife commented that there was more sex in Poor Things than in 50 Shades of Grey (2015) or an entire season of Game of Thrones (2011-2019).
But was it good?
Honestly, I can’t decide. I asked myself that very question as I left the theatre and couldn’t come up with an answer. When I’ve seen a really “good” film, I come away with some kind of powerful emotional response. I feel good; I feel sad; I am awed by the masterful acting, or I am stunned by its beauty, or repulsed by its horror.
After watching poor things I am… still thinking about it. It may be that this film needs to be watched more than once and allowed to percolate, like Inception (2010) or Fight Club (1999). Except, having seen it, I don’t really have the desire to see it again the way I did both of those films.
Was it worth the price of admission? Yeah sure. At the end of the day I liked it.
Is it Oscar worthy? Emma Stone’s acting definitely. The art direction, production and costume design, also definitely. The story, directing and film itself? Ehhhh. In the year of a major Hollywood strike with fewer and probably weaker films, it might very well be nominated for these, but it falls short of what it could have been.
