Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 21 minutes
Writer: Tony McNamara
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Quick Impressions:
What a movie! We went in completely cold, knowing only that Poor Things recently got some Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations. Just before we left the house, I also happened to see that Mark Ruffalo won Best Supporting Actor from the National Board of Review.
On the way to the theater, my husband asked me, “What is this movie about?”
I was like, “Ummmm….”
Somehow, it’s happened again! We’re behind on awards season movies! I was so excited to see Saltburn over Thanksgiving break but unexpectedly ended up hospitalized for over a week instead. So now we’re playing catch up.
Inexcusably, given my love for The Favourite, I haven’t seen every Yorgos Lanthimos film. (I remember taking a couple of days to read extensively about The Lobster and The Killing of the Sacred Deer. By the end, I wondered, “Why didn’t I just watch the movies?” But it was harder in those days. I had very young children and a mother averse to watching horrible things on our shared TV.)
The Favourite, though, tied with Won’t You Be My Neighbor? as my favorite film of 2018. I don’t like horrible things either. I like Mr. Rogers. But the darkness of The Favourite is compelling. Intellectually, I was drawn to the way that film brought to life the courtly intrigue I used to study when I was younger. We all go through dark periods, and (if The Favourite is to be believed) there’s not a period much darker than the reign of Queen Anne at night. That film brilliantly captures the dark scheming made possible by the natural lighting of Anne’s court and the fact that the queen is ill and never has a firm grasp of the politics of the court working around, though, (and occasionally inside of) her.
As we watched the first few scenes of Poor Things, I remembered fondly, “Ah yes! Yorgos Lanthimos loves fisheye!” Maybe cinematographer Robbie Ryanis the one making that choice. Regardless, I don’t think I’ve ever seen fisheye used so heavily in another director’s work. (I do remember at the time, everybody was talking about The Favourite’s cinematography being so much like Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, but I don’t have the expertise to comment on that.) The fisheye made so much sense to me in The Favourite (since it replicates the sensation of peeking through a keyhole at a disorienting world), but I’m not entirely sure why there’s so much fisheye in Poor Things. I suppose the world we’re joining in progress here is pretty disorienting, too. I need to watch the film again to think more about its visual choices—i.e. when is fisheye used, which moments are in black-and-white (or, really, more sepia-tone).
After watching for the first ten minutes or so, I couldn’t help but smile, thinking, “Oh no.” I kept making apologetic faces of delighted horror at my husband, thinking, “What have I dragged him to? Oh, God!”
I thought, “I remember finding The Favourite stunningly repulsive, too. But at the end, I realized I’d loved it. Maybe this will grow on me.”
But then it only got darker and more off-putting.
And then suddenly I noticed, “Wait! Hey! I like this!”
I started liking Poor Things much sooner than I realized I liked The Favourite. With that one, I bristled at the whole movie and only realized after the end credits that I loved it. With Poor Things, I was quite sure I found the movie offensive and strange and didn’t like it at all. Then, far less than halfway through, a switch flipped, and I realized, “No, this is great!” If I’m being honest, my change of heart has a lot to do with Mark Ruffalo.
My late coming surprise love for The Favourite was far more intense, but Poor Things won my favor far sooner (so surprising since initially I found it so off-putting and strange).
The Good:
If you like Frankenstein, you’ll love Poor Things.
Well, maybe that’s not true. I can easily imagine a huge Frankenstein aficionado despising this film. In fact, I can imagine a whole mob of townsfolk up in arms against Poor Things.
Let’s try that again. If you love Frankenstein, you still might not like Poor Things. If I were teaching Frankenstein, though, I might have my students watch Poor Things, or vice versa. It seems like a wonderful unit. Read Frankenstein, then watch a couple of films in conversation with it. Poor Things could be one. Young Frankenstein could be the other. Now I want to read Alasdair Gray’s novel to look for more Frankenstein vibes and see if the two books could be paired for an assignment in an English literature course. Caleb Williams, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Frankenstein, and Poor Things sounds about right.
If you like satire, you’re not averse to frank depictions of sexuality, you’re not easily offended (even by material that seems to wish to offend), you’re a fan of either Emma Stone or Yorgos Lanthimos, and you don’t mind if a movie seems over-eager to show you it’s not like the other girls, then you might like Poor Things. I like it. (Most people who enjoy bantering about awards season films should eat this up, even if they hate it!) (But they won’t really hate it, probably. They’ll just want to tell you so!) (But they’ll hate it because it’s self-impressed and pretends it wants to shock not because it shocks them.)
This film is sort of like a bedtime story you might read to your children if you hate them. As it goes on, it has an unexpectedly heart-warming quality. Tonally, it reminds me a bit of last year’s Triangle of Sadness except it contains a strange undercurrent of sweetness missing from that film. In Poor Things, we’re moving on an unlikely journey of self-discovery toward a surprisingly happy ending. (It would be fun to pair with a Jane Austen novel, too, maybe Northanger Abbey.) That’s what makes it different from Triangle of Sadness. None of those characters is terribly self-aware, but here Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter is all about growth and discovery.
Stone’s performance is pretty great because the character undergoes such an evolution. At the beginning, she seems vaguely repulsive, but then as we begin to understand who she actually is, she becomes far more sympathetic. And then she begins to grow and change. By the end, she’s a completely different person, or, at least, she’s finally grown into herself. (Surely this novel is already read in tons of college courses. It must be. It belongs on Women’s and Gender Studies course lists, too.)
By the end of the film, Bella has undergone such a transformation that Stone’s gradual (surprisingly subtle) adjustments along the way seem incredible in retrospect. This performance impresses me in the same way that Eddie Redmayne’s turn as Stephen Hawking did in The Theory of Everything. If I were voting for Best Actress myself, I’d probably pick Lily Gladstone at this moment (because of the way her quiet performance eclipses Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro). But Stone seems like a strong contender for Best Actress, too (as does Margot Robbie). I need to see more potential nominees before I make up my mind.
Also, I’m pretty convinced this movie might be intolerable with a different lead. (I almost took a stand on something there. Look at me!) Stone’s flair for comedy makes material that might otherwise be dark and unbearable an absolute delight to watch.
Mark Ruffalo helps with this, too. The film is immeasurably enhanced by the inclusion of his oily womanizer, the initially repugnant Duncan Wedderburn. Initially Duncan seems like a repulsive threat.
“But then you start to feel sorry for him,” my husband noted. Trying to put his finger on it, he mused, “You feel like…”
“Poor thing?” I suggested. He nodded.
He’s such a disgusting little sweetheart. I’ve never seen Ruffalo play a character like this. He could win an Oscar. I think he’ll face stiff competition from the surely far more widely seen and embraced Barbenheimer double threat of Ryan Gosling and Robert Downey, Jr. Poor Things has a kind of niche appeal that could hurt his chances. Of course, these days, awards shows also have niche appeal, and it’s the same niche. The same people who have watched Poor Things will care who wins Best Supporting Actor. But still, they don’t get to vote. So I mean…who knows!
Ruffalo’s performance is my favorite of the film. Also excellent (as always) is Willem Dafoe (and his make-up!) Ramy Youssef makes a fairly likable Max, too. And I personally found Kathryn Hunter (who not so long ago played all the witches in Macbeth) surprisingly captivating as the pragmatic philosopher-madam of a Parisian brothel (especially when she started to bite). I like the unexpected.
Best Scene:
This is not the kind of movie where one scene or sequence stands out apart from the rest. Despite its bizarre elements, it’s of surprisingly even quality. I do like the dinner party scene with Duncan’s friends where we get to see Bella’s unintentionally awful table manners. I’m also a fan of Bella’s reunion with God.
Best Scene Visually:
As I so earnestly try to recall the visuals in this film, what keeps intruding is the moment when the somewhat limited Bella plays with a cadaver’s penis, then repeatedly stabs it in the face with a scalpel saying, “Squish! Squish! Squish!” I mention this not because it’s the best scene visually, but to give you an idea of what sorts of scenes you might encounter in this movie. So if you don’t want to see that, don’t watch this movie. I’ll add, though, that the film’s appeal lies not in its lurid elements. It has both humor and heart and flirts with all sorts of philosophical and social concepts. (But if you don’t think you can look past those bizarro images, don’t watch this movie.)
The film contains a lot of strange images—scampering animals with the head of one beast and the legs of another, Willem Dafoe blowing strange bubbles into the air after eating.
What I enjoyed watching was the upward trajectory of Bella and the degradation of Duncan. But the film also gives us bright, mesmerizing colors (sometimes), and trippy, storybook-like locales.
Best Action Sequence:
I do like the moment when Duncan decides to throw Bella’s friend (Hanna Schygulla) off the ship.
The Negatives:
As of this moment, I slightly prefer The Favourite. No, more than slightly. Even though I initially recoiled at the cruelty of that film, its strange sensibility felt so fresh and unexpected. So I’d have to say The Favourite made a bigger impression on me, overall, than this one.
But I do think Poor Things is one of the best films I’ve seen this year. I find myself in the strange position of pretty much seeing only good films this year. Budgeting, time constraints, and limited offerings have made me even more risk averse and selective than usual. It’s killing me right now that our favorite “art theater” (as we called it) closed.
I must say this, though. My husband and I watched this movie while our kids watched Trolls Band Together. (My son absolutely hates watching movies—unless he’s on a special movie date with his sister. For sure he always wants to do anything he can with his sister’s full attention. Treated to time alone with her, he’ll read any book, watch any movie, do any activity.) That movie was great for them. This one would not be. Poor Things is not a movie for children.
To be clear, Poor Things in no way pretends to be a movie for children. I’m just mentioning this because I constantly talk about hanging out with my children, and I’m writing a review of this movie. Poor Things is not for kids. Now our daughter wants to see it because she’s interested in film, and possibly she can. (I’m debating.) But she’s about to turn fifteen. This is a satire about a mad scientist who was abused as a child, and it focuses on the misadventures of his own adopted “daughter” who spends a long stretch adventuring in a brothel. Perhaps, overall, it’s less cruel than The Favourite, but it’s more outright objectionable. It’s full of everything children shouldn’t see. This isn’t actually a strike against the film, just a warning for parents.
Overall:
Surprisingly (given its dark, strange aesthetic), watching Poor Things really cheered me up, so it gets major points for that. Emma Stone’s lead performance is fantastic, and Mark Ruffalo is a delightful revelation playing a character like none I’ve seen him tackle before. Do not under any circumstances take your kids to this movie, but if you’re looking for a good film and don’t feel put off by the one I’ve described here, you won’t be wasting your time or your money on Poor Things.