Poor Things, the new Yorgos Lanthimos film starring Emma Stone, has been racking up nominations and wins on this year’s award circuit. But it also sparked a bit of controversy thanks to one major feature of its plot… So what is the film actually about, and is it empowering or exploitative? Here’s what you need to know about Poor Things, those scenes, and the message the film is trying to convey!
THE WORLD OF POOR THINGS
Based loosely on Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name, Poor things is a weird, quirky film that exists on the edge of fantasy and reality – it almost feels like watching a dream brought to life. And that makes sense, since we’re literally watching the main character, Bella Baxter, come to life.
“She is accelerating at a rapid pace.”
Bella is essentially a Frankenstein’s Monster, except her creator is Dr. Godwin Baxter. A subject of experimentation himself growing up, he’s now continued the cycle and created his own human experiment: when Bella originally died, he took the brain from the baby she was carrying and put it into her own head and sparked her back to life. And so when we meet Bella, she is very much like a very small child, grunting out parts of words and with a stilted, unsure walk. Bella’s storyline gives a new meaning to parenting yourself – she is now essentially her own mother in the literal sense, but we also get to watch her take control of her life as she grows. There have been some comparisons to Barbie, since this film is also about an initially naive woman going out into a new, bad world, finding herself, and fighting the patriarchy. But where Barbie is beautiful and perfect, Bella is unbound by the societal ideas of what a woman should be and isn’t at all afraid to be a little (or a lot) weird. As Christy Lemire noted in her review on RogerEbert.com, “It’s as if “Barbie” were actually about Weird Barbie, but even that idea doesn’t quite do it justice.”
While Bella starts out under the control of Dr. Baxter – who she literally calls God by the way – she soon yearns for more out of life. He won’t even let her leave the house, but as her mind begins to develop she decides that she must go out and experience the world for herself. Having the brain of a small child of course creates some challenges, but it also provides her an amount of freedom – toddlers are notoriously unafraid to be themselves and go after whatever they want full steam ahead, and Bella follows this same path. Before leaving, though, she meets Max McCandles – a student of Dr. Baxter who is enamored with science but soon falls in love with Bella herself. Bella wants to take their budding relationship in a more intimate direction, but Max turns her down. She doesn’t have that problem with the next guy that comes into her life, Duncan Wedderburn, a kind of creepy lawyer who whisks her off on a tour of the world and of the bedroom. (We’ll unpack that in the next chapter.)
As Bella begins to rapidly expand her mind and her understanding of the world, she keeps her toddler-like stubbornness and unwillingness to be controlled.
“Why keep it in my mouth if it is revolting?”
This leads to her rapidly developing sense of agency, and irritation with the patriarchal world she’s trapped in. She left home to be free, but ends up finding herself newly suffocated by Wedderburn’s ideas of who and what she should be. Fellow travelers Martha and Harry open her eyes to the world of philosophy, and through the power of books Bella’s mind begins growing at an even faster pace.
“Do you want to see what the world is really like?” “Yes!”
Her speech becomes more intricate, she becomes a voracious reader, and finds an interest in debate. Wedderburn is none too happy about this, as he much preferred her when she was more child-like – a satire of the way that some men prefer ‘Sexy Babies’ instead of grown, capable adult women.
“You’re always reading now, Bella. You’re losing your adorable way of speaking.”
But instead of being made to feel small by Wedderburn, Bella quickly begins to get annoyed by him and push back.
“Your sad face makes me discover angry feelings for you.”
This film is filled to the brim with fantastical and bizarre sets and costumes that almost feel otherworldly. The cinematography adds to this effect as well, for example with the vignette shots that really make it feel like you’re peering into some dream world. There are also many ultra-wide shots, which represent Bella’s rapidly expanding view of the world and desire to experience everything around her. We also see Bella’s evolution through her clothes – while she starts out in more simple, childlike white gowns, as she expands her mind, even her dresses become more intricate and loud. The zany costumes and more wild plot points certainly add to the film’s unreal feeling. But because everything is centered around a rather relatable emotion – wanting to find connection, and to find yourself – no matter how wacky things get, the film always feels firmly tethered to our world.
And one thing people in our world have been in a bit of a debate over since the film’s initial film festival premiere is those intimate scenes…
EMPOWERING OR EXPLOITATIVE?
The conversation around intimate scenes has been rather contentious for a while now – as audiences have become more aware of how exploitative Hollywood can be, and how uncomfortable or even downright dangerous these kinds of scenes can be for actresses in particular, people have begun to push back against the idea of their necessity. (We’ve done a couple of videos breaking down this whole debate, which we’ll link in the comments if you’d like to watch!) So given all of this, it’s not surprising that Poor Things’ rather over the top amorous scenes grabbed people’s attention. But, are they actually problematic?
Given that Bella literally starts out with a baby’s brain, it’s not surprising that a lot of people got the ick at the idea of then watching this character get intimate, even if she does have the body of an adult. But Bella’s interest in getting intimate is just a part of her rapid growth back into adulthood; and it’s not something that is thrust upon her, but something that she begins to seek out herself as she matures. She first begins by exploring herself before she branches out to relations with others. And her first romp with Wedderburn literally brings a whole new level of color into her life. As Stone has noted, intimacy is just one part of Bella’s journey to expand her world.
“Bella’s sexuality is an important part of the story. She’s interested in the human experience and sex is a major part of that.” - Emma Stone
Her growth isn’t just shown through these kinds of scenes, we also watch her grow intellectually – she wants to travel the world and eat every kind of food and read lots of good books. Lust is just one part of her growth. And, importantly, this is a part of her life where she is in control.
“It is your body, Bella Baxter. Your body to give freely.”
Part of her learning about and expanding her interest in intimacy comes through her time at the brothel, where she grows by being in community with other women. The women here have found a type of independence and pleasure that Bella had yearned for, and they teach her how to go after it for herself. This is in direct contrast to the way the men in her life have treated her. Wedderburn in particular is miserable when he learns about her new life. He hates the idea of her independence and growth, as he wanted to keep her innocent and childlike and under his thumb forever. But Bella isn’t interested in that, and goes her own way. The film even makes a reference to A Streetcar Named Desire — in that film, when Stanley yells at the bottom of the stairs for Stella, she eventually relents and lets him back into her life; Bella… not so much.
The more carnal scenes in this film are more absurdist than titillating, they’re there to serve as part of the metaphor for Bella’s overall growth, not to be sexy. And so while they might have been a bit surprising, they’re not really ‘unnecessary’ in the way that many Hollywood intimate scenes often seem to be. And another big difference is that in this case, Stone herself was a producer on the film. This provided her a level of power over the film and its contents, and what she was made to do within it as an actor. She was able to control the scenes and what she felt comfortable doing in a way that actresses often haven’t been able to do in the past.
WHY WE CONNECT WITH IT
While this film is set in a whimsical version of the Victorian era, it still feels very relatable and relevant to our modern era because Bella’s story is one that connects women throughout time: trying to find yourself and break free from the control of men trying to keep you in a box. The biggest takeaway from her arc is the importance of being unafraid to create your own light within all of the darkness and meanness of the world. Though those scenes got a lot of press, they’re not the central part of the story and shouldn’t overshadow the film’s great exploration of personal growth of all kinds. At its heart, the film’s absurd nature serves to highlight how absurd it is that its basic premise (a woman seeking agency) is still seen as something novel and ‘out there.’ The film is filled with incredible performances, especially Emma Stone’s. She really makes Bella feel real at every level, from tottering baby to grown, self-assured woman. It’s a fun, zany take on a pretty classic premise: the person you always wanted to be has always been inside of you all along, you just had to find her. Have you already watched the film? If so, what did you think about it? Let us know in the comments!