Review: ‘Poor Things’

Poor Things Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Written by Tony McNamara. Now playing in select theatres.

“Poor Things” is a movie about a woman who receives a second chance to get to know her vagina.

That’s what happens to Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a formerly dead lady who is found and brought back to life by deformed mad scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), whom she refers to only as God. The doctor attempts to keep Bella holed up in his manor, where he and his assistant (Ramy Youssef) watch this young Frankenstein and document her progress. But once she discovers her lady parts, all hell breaks loose.

“Poor Things”marks the second collaboration between director Yorgos Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara, who teamed up for 2018’s “The Favourite.” They give us another extravagant period piece (filmed using several lenses, from wide-angle to fisheye) where women defiantly flaunt their agency and sexual independence while also behaving very badly. By adapting Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name, Lanthimos and McNamara found some choice material to again delve into vulgar shenanigans while also pulling off a visually dazzling costume drama. (I’m quite certain “Poor Things” will snap up the Oscars for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design.)

Bella predictably longs to see what’s outside her door, opting to go on a globe-trotting getaway with a caddish lawyer (Mark Ruffalo) that has her engaging in some torrid sex. (It’s almost like Lanthimos remembered the wild-ass sex scenes Ruffalo had with Julianne Moore in “The Kids Are Alright” and decided no one can blow an Oscar winner’s back out on screen but him.)

Ruffalo mostly brings foul-mouthed comic relief with his character, a so-called stud who predictably catches feelings for the beguiling Baxter, virtually oblivious that he’s sprung over a woman-child who’s still learning about this thing called the world. She gets a crash course on how this planet can be a beautiful but cruel place, filled with delicious pastries and sick, destitute souls. (Youssef’s pal and frequent collaborator Jerrod Carmichael shows up midway as a sharp-dressed cynic who briefly serves as her pessimistic tour guide.) It’s a journey that has her working at a Paris brothel in the third act, discovering how much men are willing to pay just to get it on with her.

“Poor Things” is basically a Victorian steampunk version of “Candy,” Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg’s 1958 novel that was a dirty-book takeoff on Voltaire’s satirical novel “Candide.” (It was also adapted into a disastrous sex farce 10 years later starring Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, and Ringo Starr.) Just like that work, “Poor Things” has a female protagonist exploring her sexuality while dealing with guys who instantly fall in love with this free spirit. Stone, showing a whole lot more than she has in previous movies, plays her frighteningly pale protagonist like an awkward sexaholic on the autism spectrum, often coming to pragmatic conclusions in her quest to achieve success (and orgasms) on her own terms.

The film is obviously about how women have to fight to live their own damn lives and how men do everything they can to contain and control them. The doctor and his assistant (whom the doctor encouraged to be Bella’s fiance) miss Bella to the point where they go and “create” another girl in her absence. (She’s surprisingly played by a rising, well-known young actress — I won’t spoil it — which almost seems like a built-in commentary on how quickly It Girl ingenues are discarded in Hollywood.) The story is enjoyably randy in its first half, establishing itself as a raunchy sex comedy wrapped up in sophisticated surroundings. In the second half, once Bella finds out how cold and unforgiving the world can be, it bounces back and forth between being silly and being serious. But just when you think the movie’s over and done with, it throws in a twist that not only stretches the movie to an additional, dead horse-beating 20 minutes. It also reminds you that, oh yeah, Bella was a whole other person before all this happened.

Those 20 minutes practically kill two birds with one stone, again reiterating how men are determined to keep women down and also reviving the bitter message of “The Favourite”: Quite simply, powerful people ain’t shit. Lanthimos and McNamara throw in a hell of a lot in “Poor Things.” Thankfully, it’s a horny, gorgeous hell of a lot.

This article appears in December 6, 2023.