Venice Film Festival 2023: Poor Things by Yórgos Lánthimos (Competition) | Review
Emma Stone shines and dazzles as sex-obsessed woman-child Bella in Yórgos Lánthimos’ titillating extravaganza.
I can’t claim to be particularly literate in Yorgos Lanthimos’ worldbuilding. Before Poor Things I only saw The Favourite (2018) without being aware of what I was getting myself into. Lanthimos has more than a distinctive style. To enjoy his creations one’s mind must let go to the unexpected laws of science and society that rule in the director’s stories. These laws change with every feature with only one common denominator – must be weird AF. And Poor Things is no different.
The film opens to an anatomy classroom where eager students look down on their awe-inspiring mentor Godwin Baxter. A Frankenstein in no uncertain terms wonderfully brought to life by Willem Daefoe who, even without the extreme scars on his face would have done him sufficient justice. Here Baxter picks an eager protegee (Ramy Youssef) to assist him in caring for a challenged and challenging creature who he brings up as his daughter.
Enter Emma Stone as Bella Baxter – at first meet a music box doll brought to life. In full use of her lanky physicality, Stone couldn’t be more appropriately cast. She plays with gusto a character that confounds you with her unexpected motion one moment and jabs you with a filthy constatation the next. Much humour is derived from her verbal underdevelopment and bodily probing and all to the audience’s loud delight.
Bella’s journey becomes both spiritual and literal as she becomes more and more interested and obsessed with experiencing and experimenting with sexual desire. This urge takes her away from her de facto father and former carer (now fiance) into the world unlike anything imagined before. She is invited to accompany Duncan Wedderburn (outstanding Mark Ruffalo) with promise of extensive sexual pleasure and zero possibility of attachment which seems to suit them both… At the start. Ruffalo slowly disintegrates as the jilted libertine to great comic relief.
Bella forms into a self-sufficient person precisely because of taking hold of her own sexuality. She no longer exists to be admired and examined by men but as a person of her own agency and design. As her sexual desires become more fulfilled so does her dexterity and verbal communication. The question forms – had her ‘father’ not been a eunuch and her fiance so kind hearted; had they both been of a more jealous and possessive sort would she ever have become a fully-fledged person?
Although the sex (and there’s a lot of it) will stay foremost in the viewer’s mind, Lanthimos litters Poor Things with enough detail that will make the viewing experience truly individual for every viewer depending on which details they choose to include in their interpretation of the piece. One thing most will agree on, though, is that Lanthimos has managed to create a succulent extravaganza.
