The principal conceit of Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things is honestly astonishingly simple: what if Frankenstein, but presented through the lens of feminine sexual agency? What if the Bride existed independently, seeking actualization for herself in a world so bent on denying her that? And presented as Lanthimos does here, through a journey comprising a succession of curious adventures (and carnal experiences), it would seem like such an easy story to tell. Yet there is nothing at all easy or simple about this enthralling, sensational, hilarious, and profound screed of feminist liberation that is one of the best movies of the year. More exuberant and atmospherically intoxicating than any movie Lanthimos has made, and irrepressibly inventive in its script, performances, and visuals. As Frankenstein variations go, it may be the most captivating.
Set in a fantastical approximation of the late nineteenth century, Emma Stone stars as Bella Baxter, a woman who has been reanimated by mad scientist Dr. Godwin (Willem Dafoe) following her suicide, with the brain of her unborn infant transplanted into her own head. Her mind and intelligence rapidly develops though, until in her curiosity about herself and the world she decides to escape her father’s cloistered home by following a lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) on a hedonistic gallivant through Europe, where in cities and on boats and in brothels she discovers herself in ways that enrich her perspective and subvert the efforts of men to cage and control her.
That is a pervading theme of the movie, the ways in which she is denied autonomy by men even in the guise of progress or liberation. Duncan frees her from Godwin’s limited world, only to possess her in his own way via sex and manipulation. It is a grim if accurate assessment of patriarchy, yet rather than dwell depressingly in it, Lanthimos and his writer Tony McNamara find in Bella the perfect means of refuting it. What makes Bella such a great character is how stripped she is of any preconceptions; experiencing the world completely at face value and not caring a bit for conventions of socialization, and politeness, gender and sexuality. She discovers masturbation and is utterly shameless about it -urged to repress it by her father. She discovers sex (which she calls “furious jumping”) and is enthralled -encouraged in addiction to it by Duncan, who is getting most of it. But where Duncan sees maybe a nymphomania under his sway, Bella sees merely an outlet for pleasure -and has no qualms seeking that elsewhere, to Duncan’s, by her assessment quite confusing, dismay. Why should it bother him that she can get it in other ways?
So much of the movie is built on this fun exposure to how arbitrary social customs, especially those relating to gender and sexual power dynamics, are. There’s a dark undercurrent to it of course -such as in the reveal of the circumstances that led to the original Bella’s suicide. But the attitude taken by Lanthimos is very directly one of healthy satire, perplexity to the assumptions that a patriarchal society takes for granted. When Bella learns that she can make good money towards improving herself by furious jumping with strangers, she doesn’t see any taboo in that, and we too are made to consider why Duncan (or we ourselves) has such a problem with it. Why he even gets so worked up over her mere socialization with others.
He really is the nexus of this social commentary; Poor Things is not one of those movies that plays off men as universally toxic, even if traits inherited through that system are clearly evident in both Godwin and Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), his apprentice with a soft heart who falls in love with Bella before she is whisked away. Through Jerrod Carmichael’s Harry she even is enlightened about the political truth of the world, the fierce class system that enforces poverty -to which her response is to simply mark for the poor all of Duncan’s gambling winnings. And as she explains her reasonings to him, he is of course unable to rebut with any validation of his own wealth at their expense. But Duncan is the man we see the most of, and is enormous fun as this phallic symbol brought to life. A lot of it comes from Mark Ruffalo’s delightfully ridiculous performance, his ostentatious accent and moustache, broad expressionistic acting style, and just perfect deliveries of a comic beat or phrase. It’s the most eclectic he’s ever been and it’s one of his best performances as a result.
But Ruffalo must play second fiddle to Stone, who walks away with the movie handily -in a performance so deceptively natural that you don’t notice until the end how full, complex and nuanced it really is. She plays a spectrum of both intelligence and mood, of development from infantile to mature confidence -highly variable, though always driven by a thrilling curiosity and assertiveness. So many of her talents are on display, in particular her finesse with Lanthimos and McNamara’s particular kind of sharply verbose humour -just as she had delivered in The Favourite. Yet here there is greater joy in it, something Stone also captures ecstatically, in a sex scene or a dance scene or even just, in a subdued sense, in a space of comfort. Her pale appearance is utterly striking, and she is called upon to do many a wild thing in this wild film, responding to it all with as much vigour, shrewdness and sincerity as Bella herself.
The camera is great to her, cinematographer Robbie Ryan once again making stylistic use of fish-eye lenses to create more of a disorienting notion of this world -a kind of imaginative funhouse mirror of the real nineteenth century. Most of the first act is shot in black and white, only transitioning to colour with Bella’s freedom. And there, Poor Things is Lanthimos’s most vibrant movie, with its beautifully unnatural colour schemes, towering ornate sets, elaborate costumes, and dashes of surreal visual expression that hearken back to early film or abstract art. It is a world much like a Miyazaki film, with a lot of thought put into its make-up and design, but without any need for dull explanation. There’s just a kind of accepted magic to it, yet the authenticity of its meaning is never downsized.
It is really remarkable how the absurdity of the film’s atmosphere only sharpens its convictions -its radically open sex and sexual politics, flirtations with socialism, challenges to status quos that have remained curiously unmoved in well over a century. It is a rather daring movie, certainly for some of the expressions of these, but also for the curious ways in which they are played, with humour and without judgement. There are unpleasant implications that dot the film, but the movie is never unpleasant itself. And the totality of Bella’s odyssey amounts to a highly satisfying sense of fulfilment.
The last sequence of the movie, in which the focus entirely becomes about reconciling Bella’s past life and the abusive man who drove her to end it, is perhaps a weaker digression as by that point her secret history has no real bearing on the life and choices of Bella; and it ultimately exists for her to assert herself fundamentally in this new identity and get a little revenge on a thoroughly evil misogynist. It’s all well done but feels notably detached, like a postscript to the fictitious Victorian novel of this movie.
Poor Things was in fact based on a novel, by Scottish writer Alasdair Gray. And whether it is true of his book or not, I don’t know, but Lanthimos’s adaptation captures something of a spirit of Mary Shelley that has eluded all other versions of her seminal work. Indeed Bella could be argued to be the Bride in her fullest form. It is an entirely enthralling piece, a first from Lanthimos (certainly of his English-language movies) not to leave the audience on any kind of dour note. In fact it takes delight, even a sardonic or twisted delight, in each of its aspects. Immensely funny, boisterous, provocative, and by several definitions the most curious movie of the year!
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Comments
Post a Comment