A Deep Dive into the Peculiar World of Poor Things
Poor Things is an adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, also called “Poor Things,” a witty twist on the all-too-familiar Frankenstein story. But we should also keep in mind that Lanthimos said Frankenstein wasn’t really much of an influence in the adaptation. Gray’s work has often been compared to Franz Kafka’s on the subject of “metamorphosis.” Also, Poor Things can be a version of Barbie that also focuses on sexual discovery and awakening in a humorous dialect. The similarity between Barbie and Bella is the intellectual awakening that they both had throughout the film. Both films aimed to push the limits of the feminist agenda in a patriarchal world. With Bella’s intellectual awakening, we can see hints of socialism in her, as she has some kind of realization about class and gender struggles. So Poor Things can be summarized as an unorthodox coming-of-age movie or a satire about idealism.
Lanthimos’s films push the limits and boil people down to urges and desires, and they also show how far humankind will go to get what they want, which often has a shocking affect on the audience.
Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), but addressed as God by Bella (Emma Stone), reanimated the corpse of a pregnant woman, Victoria, who killed herself by jumping off a bridge. And her unborn fetus’s brain was transmitted to the dead woman’s brain as an experiment by Godwin Baxter. Since Victoria wanted to end her life, Baxter decided to give her baby a chance to live. The reanimated woman, Bella, had to learn everything there is to know once again in a grown woman’s body.
Poor Things begins in black and white, which reflects Bella’s childish perspective and also adds a touch of classic universal horror films. This was a big surprise to the production designers since they built Baxter’s house to be seen in full color. This was also a conscious but late decision made by Lanthimos in the preparation stage. This left the team with a bit of sadness since we couldn’t see the laboratory and the house in their full glory.
It all started with her experimenting with an apple by rubbing it against her genitals to get a new plesant sensation. And when she has that feeling, she does not want to stop, and she wants to tell it to everyone else. But after, she learns about polite society and its rules, of course. But here something is unlocked: her sexual awakening has begun, and everything will change from this moment forward. These masturbation scenes can be used to explore the themes of power and control. In some contexts, masturbation may be described as an act of self-empowerment or autonomy, while in others, it could be portrayed as a manifestation of vulnerability or a lack of control.
With her eagerness to discover, she decides to leave Baxter’s house and see the world with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo). Lisbon, her first stop after she leaves the laboratory, is often projected with the color blue in cinema, which manifests the beautiful nearby ocean. But in Poor Things, that blue tone is taken out, and that leaves the audience with a familiar but also mystical feeling. Getting lost in this surreal, unusually colored atmosphere of Portugal and of the whole film.
The ship from Lisbon to Paris was a 10-foot miniature that was supported with LED screens to create colorful views and real smoke to give it a natural touch. The ship’s decor is also meant to feel “silly and a bit pompous,” according to Heath, one of the production designers. “It was ridiculous that Duncan had put Bella in a box and forced her onto the ship. So, there were a lot of references to caged animals. All the paintings were animals attacking each other.”
“Once she goes to Lisbon, there’s this idea that she no longer has any guardians; she’s on her own,” costume designer Holly Waddington says. “So, she’s often wearing things that really wouldn’t go together. She steps out into the Lisbon streets just wearing a pair of knickers, but then the top part of her costume is all intact. It was quite playful and hopefully funny.”. In the Victorian era of fashion, layering was the moment there were various types of clothing that were never meant to be seen. But Bella, as a newly emerged being, wasn’t raised with these rules put in her head, and she simply didn’t care.
Bella appears with little to no makeup in the scenes, with some exceptions. This is not the first time Lanthimos has preferred minimal makeup in his films. In The Favourite, makeup was hardly a thing on its Oscar-nominated female leads. Lanthimos wants to see the imperfections of the skin in their natural form. Since Bella has the brain of an infant, we wouldn’t expect her to put on heavy makeup, so this method is a perfect fit for Bella. With costumes and makeup, we break free from the restrictive societal expectations that bound countless women during the Victorian era.
Her understanding of the world and the society in it dramatically changes in the scene where she sees a real example of human suffering, poverty, during her voyage to Alexandria. She then decides to devote herself to making the world a better place. According to developmental psychologist Phillippe Rochat, babies as young as 10–18 months can differentiate between helpers and hindrances, and by age 2, they instinctively try to comfort those in distress, indicating an appropriate milestone for Bella.
In Paris, Bella says, “I’ve adventured and found nothing but sugar and violence. The sugar she’s mentioning can be the sweet sex with Duncan, the dances and endless nights, the food and drinks, and so on. But the violence she talks about is what is underneath all the sugar. The stuff she learned after she became aware of the lives around her. So the simplicity of the world disappears with Duncan in it. With time, Bella learns not to give in to men’s needs. She realizes this is basically her own life in her own body, and well, she can do whatever she wants with it. In Paris, after she gives all of Duncan’s money away and they’re broke, she decides to work in a brothel and leave Duncan once and for all. In the brothel scenes, we see a totally different representation of sex work in the media. After her first sex for money, she tried to hold in a laugh and after that told Duncan how terrible it was: “He made ungodly noises as he thrust into me. And a mere three thrusts was all he could manage while I stifled laughs out of politeness, of course.”. We’re so used to hearing these tragic sex work stories that Bella’s journey in the brothel seems a bit humorous. With the money she makes from the brothel, she can now afford to build a life all by herself and for herself. She attends school, meets new people, and learns about the world even more, and this changes the whole biased and not well-thought-out opinions we have on sex work since, after her time in Paris, she decides not to go back to this job without denying she had an experience there and not making her life all about that one part. It is important to state the fact that the film explores the world through Bella’s perspective, so it doesn’t necessarily defend everything Bella thinks and does. According to this, we can’t say Lanthimos glorified sex work or denigrated it. I think he did neither; he just gave us a different point of view. One of my favorite scenes from the movie was the one where Bella was laying on her bed in the brothel, and she told Swiney (Kathryn Hunter), the brothel madam, how she had a feeling of numbness. And this can be addressed as a silent trauma; the effects of the work she has done can be seen in a silent way, if that makes sense. So she realizes that it’s time to go.
“Power is the story of a woman,” Lanthimos told Time, noting that he and screenwriter Tony McNamara felt it was important in their adaptation of the book to make it more about Bella and her perspective on the contrary of the book. He also says: “Bella goes through her life without shame, discovering what she feels she needs intuitively, which is heroic in a world where you’re constantly told how to be or what’s right. It is an act of bravery to make your own path.”. The subtext of the main conflict is how a woman is caught in a system and individuals who wield power over her, both in society and in her relationships.
Let’s look at how Bella is perceived by men and how she perceives them. Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), the sweet medical student, is maybe the nicest to her. He slowly falls in love with Bella as he watches and examines her as Baxter wants, but he is willing to wait until Bella grows into her body. His first words to describe Bella were, “What a very pretty retard!”. Let’s talk about the lawyer, the boy-toy of Bella, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo). A player with enough cash to double as a sugar daddy. Even though Bella is expected to marry Max, she runs off with Duncan, who offers her a chance to show the world. He also helps her with her curiosity regarding sex and satisfies her ever-developing libido, until she goes looking for different kinds of stimulation. And this is not really welcomed by Duncan since his relationship with Bella revolves around sex, at least before he starts falling in love with her desperately. “You’re always reading now, Bella.” “You’re losing some of your adorable way of speaking.” He wants Bella to stay in her childish and naive version, maybe because if she had more information about the world, she’d be done with Duncan, which is actually what happened. Her response to this nonsense is to slap him in the face, which, to be honest, gave me a sense of relaxation. As for Dr. Godwin Baxter, things are a bit more complicated. We need to first understand what his drive was in creating someone. Was it just an experiment or something more than that? He says in a moment in the film that he does not have any sexual feelings towards Bella, maybe because he is not physically able to do so. But I think there are some paternal feelings behind this. Godwin’s father was also a doctor, and he performed some horrible and brutal experiments on Godwin, which led to his serious health problems and the scars on his face and body. Maybe he sees Bella as an opportunity to be a good father — a better one. But I need to add that Dr. Godwin emerges as possibly the only male character portrayed with genuine depth and agency, while Duncan serves primarily as a foil for Bella’s rebellion and a representation of societal norms. Max and Victoria’s former husband receive minimal development, serving mainly as background elements to propel Bella’s narrative forward.
We can see her hair’s growth throughout the film, which represents her personal growth. In the end, Bella’s hair is cut short; maybe it’s because she is not a child anymore; she experienced a lot; she saw the world; and finally, because she is of the same age as Victoria, her growth is in some way complete. Also, the length of her hair defied Victorian conventions. In Victorian times, women wouldn’t let loose their hair like Bella, so again, we can see another attack on societal norms through Bella.
Finally, let’s look at the ending. Bella hears about Dr. Godwin’s disease and decides to leave Paris to go visit him in London. Godwin is not doing so well, and he’s aware of the death that awaits him. And Godwin tells Bella everything because now might be the only chance to tell her so. After that, everyone thinks that it’s time for Bella and Max to get together, but no one sees what’s coming next: Victoria’s husband! The dead woman’s husband thinks Bella is Victoria. So when the husband, Alfie, stops Max and Bella’s wedding and asks Bella to go with him, she accepts to learn more about Victoria’s life and what pushed her to the edge. She quickly regrets this decision since Alfie wants to take her captive and control her every movement. She shoots him in the foot and escapes. Now let me paint you the final scene: Godwin is dead; Bella is studying for her exams to become a doctor; Max is her assistant; and Alfie is turned into a goat by Bella as her first experiment. “We should get some water for the general,” Bella says for Alfie. This final scene is somewhat like a joke that works on multiple layers; men attempted to control Bella without her consent all her life. Now let’s look at where these men end up: One of them is turned into a goat, one of them is dead, one of them is her assistant, and one of them is nowhere to be found. At last, Bella reigns over her own fate, comfortably settled in the very chair once occupied by her creator or father, relishing the tranquility that accompanies self-assurance in one’s identity. She has her afternoon gin as she observes her younger sister (the other experiment of Godwin) play with the family pet (the ex-husband)!
Sources
Holly Waddington’s Interview: https://www.whistles.com/inspiration/interviews/in-conversation-with-holly-waddington-costume-designer-of-the-new-film-poor-things-on-working-with-yorgos-lanthimos-and-exploring-the-concept-behind-the-captivating-costumes.html
Lanthimos’s interview:
- https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/power-freedom-scary-people-times-yorgos-lanthimos-poor-things
- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/movies/emma-stone-yorgos-lanthimos-poor-things.html
Heath& Price’s interview: https://screenrant.com/poor-things-movie-james-price-shona-heath-interview/
Phillippe Rochat and Developmental Psychology: https://www.inverse.com/science/poor-things-behavioral-psychology-brain-development
