This isn’t your typical movie night flick. It's an uncomfortable, disturbing, and brilliantly crafted piece of cinema that makes your mind spin.
Poor Things is a Frankenstein of a film that had me transfixed in all its incredulity. Look away now if you don’t want spoilers! For everyone else, here’s a quick refresher: the movie takes us on Bella’s journey as a woman with an infant’s brain implanted into her skull by Dr Godwin Baxter, a celebrated scientist and her father of sorts. Her journey into adulthood is mired by feelings of confusion as she feels suffocated by Baxter’s controlling nature, and, desperate to explore the world, she escapes and travels the globe. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a feel-good, coming-of-age movie though…
All dark, no comedy
Playing an infant as an adult may sound comical, yet Emma Stone’s portrayal is anything but. It’s so convincingly done, in fact, that I failed to get any comic relief from it. Sure, there are hints at humour throughout the film, but I wouldn’t classify them as comic relief – at no point did I truly feel ‘relieved’. The film’s dark undercurrent kept me transfixed, as Bella’s progression into womanhood unfolds with a mesmerising, albeit disturbing, brilliance.
Disorienting questions
The film gives us philosophical quotes like, “Who am I lying in a feather bed while dead babies lie in a ditch?” (Bella) and “Hope is smashable. Realism is not.” (Harry). Bella’s time on a cruise ship sees her take a reality hit when Harry (a newfound friend and perennial cynic) leads her to a scene beyond the ship’s luxurious walls, where Bella discovers the dark reality of slums (hence the “dead babies” quote).
This brings the issue of class divide to the forefront of the viewer’s mind – yet another uncomfortable topic that whirs in your brain while you munch on your popcorn. Add to that the question of ethics and my mind was spinning: is there a moral debate here when Harry is essentially showing a kid morbid scenes of death? Because at this point, it appears like Bella’s brain is that of a child’s.
Bella seemed to fully mature only after spending time in a brothel. I couldn’t help feeling the discomfort of knowing that she was essentially a sex worker while she had the mental capacity of a child. Or at best, an adolescent. The nude and sexually suggestive scenes go beyond the brothel though (and it starts with Bella at an uncomfortably young mental age). That’s likely why this movie wasn’t approved for general screening in the usual cinemas. But nudity in this film isn’t just a cheap thrill to draw in the crowd; the stripped down scenes were an astute dive into the themes of Bella’s self-discovery, agency, and independence.
Wielding colour like a sword
The film’s colour (or lack thereof) is a subtle yet ingenious storytelling tool. It opens with colour before cutting to black and white. We soon realise that the scenes devoid of colour mainly depict the times and places where Bella lacks agency and freedom. Flashbacks to her past as an adult woman are shown in hues that match their location; while her time in Portugal was colour graded to manic, almost psychedelic saturation.
Towards the end, Bella’s return to her former “prison” (i.e. Dr Baxter’s home and lab) with newfound agency sees the space awash in homely hues where there were none before, as she strode in as a fully independent woman.
Romantic, or plain weird?
The film brings to mind questions of what is acceptable romantic love. Max, a student of Dr Baxter, has a “love at first sight” moment when he sees Bella for the first time, seemingly purely based on her outer beauty. Bella, however, has the brain of a child (literally, as the viewer soon finds out), with the motor skills of a toddler and no potty training.
As he tracks Bella’s development, it seems he falls in love with her, despite her not having the emotional or intellectual capacity of an adult. At this point, are his feelings morally wrong? It could be inferred that he was developing romantic feelings for a child. That said, Max’s upstanding character doesn’t get physical with Bella, and only asks for her hand in marriage after her progression to a full grown adult.
Then there’s Duncan who, after discovering that Bella seemed to be intellectually challenged, takes advantage of her while in Dr. Baxter’s abode. He whisks her away on a whirlwind tour of Europe later. On their travels, we see a grown man falling in love with Bella’s juvenile self. (Not without sleeping with her first, of course.)
When Bella grew into adulthood and started reading philosophy, at one point, Duncan got frustrated and threw her book away. He even lamented that Bella was losing her “adorable” way of speaking – presumably, referring to her lack of proper speech. And make no mistake: the way she spoke wasn’t akin to an adult pretending to be whiny or “cute”, it was the manner of speech of a child learning a new language. And it was the latter that Duncan apparently preferred.
Many of the characters (ahem, Bella’s ex-husband) subscribe to the traditional concepts of misogyny and patriarchy. But thankfully, 21st century logic prevails in the end, with Bella gaining agency and Max asking for her hand in marriage as an adult.
There are other plot twists which I won’t spoil, and the ending is technically a happy one. Some die, some live. There’s also gin and a Frankenstein goat. But I still can’t get the litany of uncomfortable questions and scenes out of my head. Ingenious colour grading and whimsical yet creepy music all add to the disorienting effect of this film. At the end, I left the theatre with a general sense of unease, but in awe of its brilliance.
Catch upcoming screenings of Poor Things at the Projector from now till January 2024.
