POOR THINGS

Whilst I have not seen all of his work, the films of Yorgos Lanthimos have had somewhat diminishing returns for me over the years. I loved The Lobster, liked The Killing of a Sacred Deer, but found The Favourite to be utterly impenetrable. So I went into Poor Things with a sense of trepidation.

Fortunately my misgivings were proved to be totally unwarranted, as with Poor Things Lanthimos has delivered my favourite film of his to date.

Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is a corpse. A corpse reanimated by eccentric surgeon / mad scientist Godwin “God” Baxter (Willem Dafoe).

Confined to God’s house, and betrothed to medical student Max (Ramy Youssef) Bella, after discovering sex and a longing for freedom, decides that before she can marry she must see the world; have fun.

Accepting an offer from roguish / predatory lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) she leaves London on the search for adventure.

Emma Stone, as Bella, is electric. It is a performance that the entire film rests upon, and she shoulders this weight with ease. While she did not win major awards for her turn in The Favourite it is incomprehensible to think that the same will happen again here. This film may have arrived too late for the current awards season, but come this time next year, expect her to clean up.

Throughout the course of the runtime Bella goes through just about every emotion it is possible to go through, and grows a tremendous amount emotionally and intellectually, yet Stone is never anything but utterly believable. 

This growth is also represented magnificently on screen by cinematographer Robbie Ryan and set designer Zsuzsa Mihalek. Opening in a constricting black and white, Poor Things transforms into colour when Bella takes leave from the confines of God’s home. She is presented with a fantastical, steam punk world, full of childlike innocence and wonder. 

But as the film progresses, and she learns more about the world - begins to feel more ground down by it - the less fantastical it becomes. The fewer little quirks it seems to have. Less colour permeates her life.

The way that the world subtly changes around Bella to match her emotional and intellectual state is wonderful filmmaking, and a prime example of a film maker and their crew being at the absolute top of their game.

I did have some reservations while watching it, as to Poor Things credentials as a feminist film. It is one full of abusers and people who try to exploit her, and even Max, who is portrayed as the films most likeable male character, is someone who falls in love with her while she has the mental age of a child.

Yet the more I have thought about it, the more I find myself coming around to the other side. Yes, the majority of the men she meets are awful, but she knows that they are. She knows what they want, and uses them to get what she wants. Every decision that Bella makes is her own. Made on the basis of what she wants to do, and often in the face of what she’s told by the patriarchal figures around her.

She is a character with agency, and is one that by the end of the film is defined entirely by herself.

It is certainly flawed in certain ways - Max being the prime example -  almost certainly a vision of feminism seen through the eyes of men (considering that the films director, writer, and the author of the source material are all men), but on reflection I feel it warrants is feminist moniker.

I am certain, however, that I am not the best person to be having this discussion anyway, and I would be interested to hear others thoughts on this.

While I would say that Poor Things is an acquired taste, it also feels like Yorgos Lanthimos’s most accessible film to date (which perhaps say more about his others than this one). Despite some of the dark themes that arise throughout it, it is consistently laugh out loud funny (the line “She grabbed my hairy business” a particular highlight for me!). Emma Stone has proven in the past that she is an excellent comic performer, but with Poor Things she is at a career best.

It is, definitely, a film that does demand some patience. Especially in its first act. You will need to allow it the time to set out its stall and show what it is going to be.

And I am pleased I watched it in the cinema. Because, with the reservations I had going in, I’m not sure I would have afforded it this patience if I was watching at home, with all of the other distractions, and offerings, that watching at home offers.

But if you do give it some time, and if you allow yourself to be taken in by it’s surrealism, you will be rewarded.

It is a film with frequent sex and nudity, pig-chicken hybrids, and a eunuch who can’t pass gas without the aid of a machine (I stand by the statement that it is his most accessible work to date). 

It is impressive then, that despite all of this, the most shocking and jarring thing in it is Willem Dafoes accent. I’m a big fan of Dafoe, but it is an accent that dances wantonly across the British Isles and beyond, never settling on a country let alone a region, and this was the only thing that pulled me out of the films absurdist world.

Poor Things is a film crew at it’s best. One working in tandem to deliver something remarkable. A career best from Yorgos Lanthimos, and a career best from Emma Stone. Outlandishly funny, consistently brave, and uncompromising in its vision, Poor Things will reward anyone willing to stick with it, and in Bella Baxter delivers an unforgettable hero.