poor things (now streaming on Hulu, in addition to VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) is an extremely rare Everything film: it is comedy, horror, science fiction, drama, satire and period piece; It is a study of high concept and character; It is a showcase of direction, technique and acting; With its numerous sex scenes, but even more ideas, it is as horny as it is cerebral; It’s a tremendously authoritative and challenging film that feels like outsider art, but it earned a whopping 11 Oscar nominations, winning 4 of them. Yorgos Lanthimos – the crazy director behind Lobster, The killing of a sacred deer and the favorite – reteams with Emma Stone for this stunning excursion into the grotesque and whimsical, the Oscar-winning actress’s unforgettable performance backed by equally unhinged turns from Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo. Is it absolutely the best movie of 2023? Yes, it could be.
POOR THINGS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: “It was obvious. Take the baby’s brain and put it in the adult woman. Resuscitate her and observe. Obvious! Bella (Stone) was dead when Godwin Baxter (Dafoe) pulled her from the river, although the child she carried still lived. And so, Godwin (who you can call God for short, if you have it in you, although I don’t blame you if you doubt) simply did what was unnatural. I mean, he once grafted a bulldog’s head onto the body of a chicken, and now it’s wandering around her yard, so this is the next logical step. And now Bella has the mind of a baby inside an adult body. Such a miraculous atrocity is possible in this retro-futuristic version of Victorian London, filmed in sumptuous black and white, where Godwin is a prized surgeon whose monstrous physical deformities are the result of his father’s cruel experiments, which he speaks of. . completely naturally, since he is a man of cold science and observation, not of fiery emotions. He sees Bella as an opportunity to make detailed observations about human nature. He is a crude identification, walking stiffly and clumsily, spitting food, speaking in monosyllabic grunts, breaking things, running, screaming and urinating.
Of course, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) is completely in love with her. How could you No be? Max is Godwin’s assistant, charged with documenting Bella’s development, and as her ability to communicate develops and her awareness of herself and the world grows, he recognizes her beauty. It may help that Bella has awakened to the pleasures of masturbation and, free from the rules of “polite society,” demonstrates it with fruit from the table: “Bella discovers happiness whenever she wants!” he shouts. Godwin agrees to let them marry, but on the condition that they stay here in his house, so that he can continue the experiment, but also protect her from the cruel faces outside that have long looked at her scarred face and grimaced. “There are so many things out there that can kill you, Bella,” Godwin lectures. “Snakes, chariots, shark-faced birds, earthquakes, inhaling grass seeds.”
Godwin calls in a lawyer to draw up the marriage agreement and, as often happens when lawyers enter the plot, things go crazy. Duncan Wedderburn (Ruffalo) looks at Bella and is enthralled. He is a scoundrel. He likes to drink, fuck and gamble. He exploits Bella’s desire to see her world by inviting her on a field trip to Lisbon and she leaves. He sleeps with her and the world goes from black and white to color as she screams in ecstasy. “Furious leaps,” she calls it. “Why don’t people do this all the time?” he asks, and hey, does anyone have a good answer for that? I don’t believe it. But just as Godwin and Max failed to control Belle, neither does the repugnant Wedderburn, whose rants about the joys of freedom and the stifling ways of society turn into hypocritical speeches when Belle begins exploring Lisbon, reading books, to talk to other people and have sex with some of those other people. She is becoming human. She is becoming a woman. Is the world corrupting her or is she making it a better place?
What movies will it remind you of?: Lanthomos’ range of influences, as I see it, includes: Jean-Pierre Jeunet Ameliaeach and every iteration of FrankensteinDavid Lynch The elephant Manby Guillermo del Toro The shape of water and if Werner Herzog had directed poor thingsI could have titled it Every woman for herself and Godwin against all.
Performance worth seeing: Ruffalo has never been funnier; Did we know he had it in him? But Stone takes this extraordinary opportunity to explore a character from a blank slate to a mature self-awareness and makes the most of it.
Memorable dialogue: Bella: “I ventured out and found nothing but sugar and violence. It is most charming. I’m fine”.
Sex and skin: poor things it features almost all things sexual while maintaining a hard R rating.
Our opinion: All this madness, cruelty and vile depictions of patriarchal control, and yet poor things It is, in short, a deeply hopeful film. Adapted from Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, Lanthomos has executed a visual and thematic marvel that plays like a parable, like an impressively rich, crude and graphic fairy tale. Are there words more extreme than surreal either strange That we can release it and still not accurately describe what Lanthomos, Stone and others have put on screen? But where most of the director’s previous films sought to unsettle us (I’m looking at you, Sacred Deer), poor things eschews the cheapness of shock value and makes remarkable observations about femininity and sexuality, and how the world (ruled by men, as always) seeks to inhibit, contain, crush and even exterminate them.
Max’s character functions as our kind of surrogate, first wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into, and then falling in love with Bella and dealing with the bear trap that is love: he must be selfless and let her go. with the slimy Wedderburn, and experience the pain and suffering that reality reaps in the soul. To do anything else would stunt his growth and, frankly, would ruin Godwin’s experiment. And so he learns lessons of morality, mortality and money, initially at Wedderburn and later while working in a French brothel, which is as rich an education in the human condition as anything short of fighting a war.
Lanthomos uses his signature fisheye lens distortions and myopic viewpoints to capture Stone’s incredible psychophysical performance and some equally stunning set design and visual effects. Tony McNamara’s script is wildly funny, transforming the formality of early 20th-century British speech into multiple inventive euphemisms for masturbation and other creative vocabulary flirtations; At times, the dialogue is markedly literalist; in others, it is richly metaphorical. It leads to an immensely satisfying conclusion that is a masterful stroke of a tonal contortionist: it is as unhinged as it is hopeful. “Would you rather the world didn’t have Bella?” Godwin asks at one point, and despite the ethically questionable circumstances of her birth, it’s hard to say no. I guess we can say that the experiment was a great success.
Our call: After further review, poor things is actually the best movie of 2023. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
