Welcome to our Colossus Movie Guide for Poor Things. This guide contains our detailed library of content covering key aspects of the movie’s plot, ending, meaning, and more. We encourage your comments to help us create the best possible guide. Thank you!
What is Poor Things about?
Poor Things is, like most Yorgos films, strange. But also mostly straightforward. Bella’s child-like perspective of the world allows the film to question established norms, gender roles, and power dynamics. It’s like if an alien arrived on Earth and kept asking “Why do you do that? And why do you do that? And what about that?” The journey Bella goes on is one of empowerment. She faces various forms of control (mostly in the form of men) but manages to stay true to herself and define herself. There’s also a subtheme of redemption. None of us will be reborn like Bella, but we can choose to embark on a fresh start. To question our own norms, behaviors, beliefs, etc, and grow into someone new, different, and better.
Movie Guide table of contents
Cast
- Bella Baxter/Victoria – Emma Stone
- Dr. Godwin Baxter – Willem Dafoe
- Max McCandles – Ramy Youssef
- Felicity – Margaret Qualey
- Duncan Wedderbum – Mark Ruffalo
- Harry Astley – Jerrod Carmichael
- Martha Von Kurtzroc – Hanna Schygulla
- Madame Swiney – Kathryn Hunter
- Toinette – Suzy Bemba
- General Alfie Blessington – Christopher Abbott
- Mrs. Prim – Vicki Pepperdine
- Based on – The novel Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
- Written by – Tony McNamara
- Directed by – Yorgos Lanthimos
The ending of Poor Things explained
Recap
The end of Poor Things begins following Bella’s climactic showdown with General Blessington, her brain’s father/body’s husband. This is their final dialogue.
Bella: I’ve found our time together interesting. But have ascertained why I jumped from a bridge. I wish to go to see my near-dead God.
Alfie: Adorable idea. Unfortunately, my darling, my life is dedicated to the taking of territory. You are mine. And that is the long and short of it.
B: I’m not territory.
A: The root of the problem is between your legs. I will have it off. And it will not distract and divert you, anymore. See, a man spends his life wrangling his sexual compulsion. It’s a curse. And yet, in some ways, his life’s work. A woman’s life’s work is children. I intend to rid you of that infernal package between your legs and plant a seed in you straight after.
B: Let me explain what has happened. Victoria, your wife, threw herself from a bridge and died. Godwin Baxter found her, brought her to his surgery, he then removed the baby, removed the brain from the baby, transplanted it into my head and reanimated me.
A: Ah.
B: I’ll bring you the file—it’s actually quite fascinating. However, I will keep my new life, and my lovely old clitoris, thank you. If you would call a carriage, for me.
A: They talk and talk and yet at some point there is nothing left but to pull a gun. [Sighs]. ‘tis the way with women. [Bella approaches]. Are you giving it?
B: I’d rather you shot me in the f***ing heart.
A: I will oblige, if I have to. Drink the drink, darling. Chloroform and gin.
B: In some ways it would be a relief to be rid of my questing self.
A: Sip deeply and that freedom is yours.
Bella throws the drink in Alfie’s face, then they struggle for the weapon. It fires right into Alfie’s foot. Max arrives and he and Bella perform surgery on Max. First, they remove the bullet, saving his life. Second, they transplant a goat’s brain into Alfie’s body.
In the next scene, Bella and Max cuddle with God. She explains, “It was just the story of someone else. Not Bella Baxter.” God’s last words are “It’s all very interesting, what is happening.” He passes away.
We conclude with the household in the wake of God’s death. Felicity and the housemaid, Mrs. Prim, play catch with a football. Felicity shows signs of progress by actually being able to catch. Max brings Bella and Toinette a drink. We hear she’s about to take the medical exam. The general is now a goat. Soaring music plays as everyone enjoys the moment. The last shot is of a content Bella, reading.
Meaning
As strange in style as Poor Things is, the themes of the movie are made pretty clear throughout. Bella’s on a journey of actualization that is distinctly feminine in what is a male-dominated world. Every man in her life has tried to exert some sort of control over her. God wanted to keep her from the world. Max, Duncan, and Alfie all wanted to claim Bella as their own. And Harry Astley wanted to destroy her innocent, positive view of the world. Yet she continuously and successfully defies each of these men. Going from a dependent in their care to a peer (even a superior).
This conflict with men comes to a head with the showdown between Bella and Alfie, when Alfie declares her his territory. Max had been timid. Duncan had been full of bluster but not a serious opponent. Alfie, though, embodies the worst of men. Controlling. Violent. Entitled. Cruel. Self-deifying. He’s a true boss fight. And Bella is, at that point, experienced enough, learned enough, to handle herself, besting him and winning not only her freedom but her sovereignty of self.
The final scene establishes a kind of mini-utopia. This gets at the film’s second primary theme—the tension in humanity between darkness and light. Bella’s time in the world was full of inequality, exploitation, and drama. But at the end, in that backyard, there’s an equality and seeming transcendence of labels. Did Bella and Max marry? Maybe. Are Bella and Toinette still physically involved? Maybe. Mrs. Prim had been the housemaid but she’s no longer serving, simply enjoying being part of the household. The general has become a comical oddity. This is a microcosm of what a progressive society might look like. Peaceful, egalitarian, non-territorial. A stark difference from what we saw in Alexandria with the rich at the top of a tower and the poor in the ruins below.
Lastly, Bella becoming a doctor is a culmination of her desire to help others. In her philosophical conflict with Harry Astley (on the boat), Bella had said if she knows the problems of the world then she can improve it. Harry responded with “Hope is smashable. Realism is not.” But Bella never loses her sense of hope. And though she might not be able to save everyone across the globe, she can, by becoming a doctor, make a difference. It’s her way of offering something to the world (beyond money).
If you want to go the extra mile, you can try and make an argument that Godwin’s death is symbolic. Throughout Poor Things, Bella refers to Godwin as God. And he did literally give her life by playing god (not to mention all the animals he spliced together). But religion isn’t a huge part of the movie. So it would seem a bit narrow to only focus on Godwin as symbolic for something as specific as, say, the God of Christianity (given the English setting).
When we look at what he meant to Bella, he was her father-figure. But also the one who had defined her world. His death coincides with Bella fully coming into her own. This gets at something most of experience. The transition from the innocence of childhood to being the ones in charge. Not only of our lives but actually shaping society. It starts when we’re teenagers but is full-force once we’re in our thirties, as the generations before us age and pass. We take up the torch from our parents, our teachers. We move past them. Into whatever’s next.
So the death of “God” feels less about religion and more about the idea of control or having a safety net. No one is there to tell you what to do or how to do it. The power is in your hands. For better or worse.
The themes and meaning of Poor Things
Questioning the way things are
Bella’s situation means she’s experiencing the world for the first time but as an adult. Meaning she can combine child-like curiosity with a grown-up’s perception and processing to ask some very complex questions about the world. Despite its Victorian-era setting, the questions are for our modern society. Specifically, about gender, class, existentialism, puritanical views on sex, and the continued belief that women are territory for men to conquer. On the one hand, the historical context lends the movie a distance, as if we’ve progressed past some of these concerns. On the other hand, we haven’t.
Poor Things becomes both a reminder and a blueprint. A reminder to not become as cynical as Harry Astley. Or as resigned as Mrs. Prim. You can remain optimistic, inquisitive, and determined. And Bella is the blueprint for that. You can’t be her. But you can channel and draw strength from her idealism. Which is the hallmark of an enduring character.
Taking the good with the bad
Bella starts very sheltered. Then Duncan takes her away on what starts out as a very enchanting trip. That quickly grows complicated as Duncan becomes more needy, possessive, and incapable of keeping up with Bella intellectually and emotionally. We see a bit of her innocence worn away. It completely shatters when Harry takes her to Alexandria and shows her the people of the slums. They’re starving, naked, in need of help. But no one helps.
Initially, Bella’s overwhelmed. She returns to the ship in a state of total distress. It’s a lowpoint. Her first reaction is to try and help by giving money. But that’s also an innocent gesture that’s quickly taken advantage of by two of the crew who lie that they’ll pass on the box of cash to the poor. She cries and questions why the world could be like this and how she can just be enjoying herself while others suffer.
The next day, however, she thanks Harry. Saying that she has to understand these things if she’s ever going to change them. This notion of experiencing lows gathers steam in the next scenes. First, she and Duncan find themselves poor on the streets of Paris. Instead of being a blubbering mess like Duncan, Bella rises to the challenge. Though her solution is one that most people find unsavory—a brothel. It’s, at times, frustrating and sad and challenging. But Madame Swiney tells her: We must experience everything. Not just the good, but degradation, horror, sadness. This makes us whole, Bella. Makes us people of substance. Not flighty, untouched children. Then we can know the world. And when we know the world, the world is ours.
Bella was a flighty, inexperienced child. But its her experiences with both the good and the bad that deepen not just her understanding of the world but of herself. She knows herself better by seeing Harry’s reaction to the slums versus her own. Or her reaction to poverty versus Duncan’s. When it comes to Alfie, Bella could have given in. Or jumped from a bridge like Victoria. She chooses to fight. And she has the confidence to do so because of everything she had experienced up to that point.
That’s not to say we can all so easily process tragedy and adversity. Bella is, afterall, a movie character. But she serves as an ideal. As often as you can, make the best of setbacks, learn from the mishaps, and forge forward, stronger.
Why is the movie called Poor Things?
The novel addresses the title somewhat directly. But also not. That’s because the novel is a throwback to gothic literature. Meaning it uses a frame narrative to present itself as a “found document”. By that, the author, Alasdair Gray, pretends that he simply is the editor who is putting together these papers that were legitimately found by someone else. Meaning that what we’re reading is a “true” story. This was immensely popular with gothic novels from the 1800s. Dracula is probably the most famous example.
So Poor Things opens with Alasdair explaining the origins of the documents we’re going to read. It’s all rather believable. And somewhat boring as he gets into the process of publishing the very text you’re reading.
He lent me this book, saying he thought it a lost masterpiece which ought to be printed. I agreed with him, and said I would arrange it if he gave me complete control of the editing. He agreed, a little reluctantly, when I promised to make no changes to Archibald McCandless’s actual text. Indeed, the main part of this book is as near to a facsimile of the McCandless original as possible, with the Strang etchings and other illustrative devices reproduced photographically. However, I have replaced the length chapter headings with snappier titles of my own…I have also insisted on renaming the whole book POOR THINGS. Things are often mentioned in the story and every single characters (apart from Mrs. Dinwiddie and two of the General’s parasites) is called poor or call themselves that sometime or other.
So even though that’s expressed as the origin of the title, it’s Alasdair Gray in character. Meaning the actual reason for the title can be much deeper.
And that comes through in the first use of the phrase in the book. It’s after Alfie Blessington reveals himself at Bella’s wedding with Max (Archibald in the book). Bella’s having a conversation with God about Alfie.
“I never thought our marriage would be such fun. Is that poor old man really my dad? We must try to cheer him up. Did I really marry that long thin stick with a mask on top? Ee, I am well away from him. Did all these men mean to kidnap me? For a moment they looked as if they would. I am glad you were with us, God. Candle would have died fighting for me but what use is a dead Candle to a kidnapped Bell?
One blast of your lungs would have knocked flat the whole clamjamfrie, God, and they knew it. So at last it looks as if the mystery of the Origin of Bell Baxter’s Species is going to be solved. What did that medico whisper to you, God?”
“A lie. He will probably repeat it aloud and you will hear me contradict him.”
“Why are you looking so miserable, God? Why are you not as excited as I am?”
“BEcause you are going to learn that I too have told lies.”
“You? A liar?”
“Yes.”
“If you have lied to me how can there be any truth? Who can be any good?” said Bella, looking frightened.
“Truth and goodness do not depend on me, Bell. I am too weak. I am as poor a thing as General Blessington. Prepare to despise both of us.”
So the emphasis seems to be on the weakness of the men in Bella’s life. They’re the poor things. Which tracks in terms of what we see in the movie. God’s sheltering. Max’s eagerness to please. Duncan’s cloying. Harry’s negativity. The men in the brothel are mostly sad and desperate. Alfie’s wickedness. Bella has to have patience in her dealings with all of them. Though Max does come around.
Of course, it’s hard not to think of the literal poor we see in Alexandria and Bella’s ultimate goal of contributing something to the world in order to help those in need.
While all of that tracks, I think it mostly comes back to the conversations Harry and Bella have on the boat. Bella says “It is the goal of all to improve, advance, progress, grow. I know this in me and I’m sure I am indicative of all.” To which Harry says, “But this improvement through philosophy is people trying to run away from the fact that we all are cruel beasts. Born that way. Die that way.” Later, Bella talks to him about Duncan and how angry he makes her but says she doesn’t want to be cruel. Then, after Alexandria, she rejects his notion that we are a “f***ed species.” Boiling him down to “a broken little boy who cannot bear the pain of the world.”
So I think the title ultimately gets at this notion that we are all our poor things facing the overwhelming struggle to live well. The experience can break us. But some continue to seize whatever hope is within reach. Either way, the title evokes a sense of empathy for humanity as a whole.
And then the movie does open with Victoria leaping from the bridge, while pregnant. We go from the shot of her falling to the title Poor Things. So there’s an application to not just Victoria and her unnamed baby. But the dual-persona they become after God implants the baby’s brain into Victoria’s body.
Important motifs in Poor Things
The cruelty of God’s father
God has multiple stories about his dad conducting experiments on him. He struggles with this because it’s clearly not something a parent who loves their child would do to their child. Except God wants to believe his father loved him. But it seems like nothing more than simple cruelty. His struggle with this ties back to the larger thematic discussions around human nature and our capacity to cope.
The different camera lenses
The cinematographer, Robbie Ryan, has done a few interviews about the use of different lenses. There’s a 4mm that they used “any time a scene needed a bit more expression…usually, when the scene gets a bit heightened, that lens came out.” And the Petzval. IndieWire explained “Ryan could use the Petzval in deliberately portrait-like moments of Bella struggling with, understanding, or deciding something, so that it shifts all the detail in the frame onto her while creating a lovely bokeh behind.” And then zoom and wide-angle lenses.
From Variety “Lanthimos wanted to find a vignetted wide lens to ‘create a portal feel so that you’re looking into another world,’ Ryan says. To create that vignette, he used a 16-millimeter lens called a four-millimeter Optex on a 35-millimeter format… ‘I think it adds to the humor and the broadness of the film in a way because it’s such a statement lens.’”
They actually combined various parts from vintage and contemporary cameras into what Ryan called a “Frankenstein camera”. So each time you see the lens change, it’s to evoke something specific.
The change from black and white to color
A little obvious. But when Bella’s initially so sheltered by God, her world is essentially devoid of color. It isn’t until she goes out into the world with Duncan, and loses her virginity, that film erupts into color. It’s one of the many ways Yorgos messes with the formal aspects of the filmmaking to embody the visceral and tactile aspects of the story.
Questions & answers about Poor Things
What was the opening scene?
When Poor Things begins, we just see some light fabric. with various pictures stitched in. It’s such an extreme zoom that it’s hard to tell what we’re looking at. But it’s probably a quilt for an infant. Specifically, Victoria’s and Alfie’s baby. It serves as symbolic for the soon to arrive child that Victoria really doesn’t want.
Why did Victoria jump from the bridge?
We don’t really know much about her. Alfie said they both had a similar sense of humor (which was very cruel). And the staff don’t seem particularly happy to see Bella because they think she’s Victoria. So it’s possible she was a cruel person, a bad person. And that she so badly didn’t want to be a mother that she’d rather leap from a bridge. It’s also possible that she was, like Bella would have been, claimed by Alfie, imprisoned by him, and was trying to spare both herself and the child from a future with such an evil person.
Why did God burp bubbles?
God mentions several times that his father was a scientist who experimented on him. God’s also an experimenter himself. So it’s either a byproduct of something from his childhood or some “improvement” to digestion that he himself imagined.
Was Felicity not as smart as Bella?
They do say it’s taking her longer to develop than Bella. Which makes the case that there’s something special about Bella. But we do see, at the end, that Felicity’s motor skills have advanced to the point of catching a ball. So it seems like maybe she’ll continue to progress. But even if she doesn’t, she’s part of the family and they’ll take care of her.
Now it’s your turn
Have more unanswered questions about Poor Things? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!
Thanks for the analysis. A very interesting film, well acted and thought out. The focus on sex and prostitution from a male author and director might attract some criticism. The steam punk styling was an effective way to create a separate reality and suspend disbelief
It has definitely attracted some criticism lol. The steampunk choice was really cool.
I’m trying to find the knock knock joke, Cheese to meet you!
I came away from the film with what I thought an obvious question that I haven’t seen addressed anywhere, though I’ve scoured the web for a sign of it. Why didn’t Bella (with Max’s help) try to move Godwin’s brain into Alfie’s body, when the opportunity presented itself so neatly? To me, that seemed to be the direction things were going, until we saw the goat. All other aspects of the film seemed quite clear (and delightful) to me.
Hey! I watched the film tonight and at first I thought it was going in the same direction as you thought in that scene.
But when I saw the General as a goat, it was the perfect choice they could have done.
As you know, when Bella confronts God after coming back from France, she isn’t happy about what God has done by the experiment, which is Bella herself. But she thanks him for the “option of life” he gave her. Because Bella was an unborn baby, she haven’t lived before. So God actually gave her her first life.
But God lived a life already unlike Bella, and I doubt a man like him who is pragmatic and born and raised with science would like to continue to that cycle of life in someone else’s body again, screwing the first law of nature, we all born and die (you know, I don’t think they are after immortality with their researches). And also we know Bella’s point of view about this exact topic, so that route would make the story really switch off for the sake of keep God living, which has no point.
Also this would turn into a circle, God saving Bella’s brain and Bella saving God’s brain, they live happily ever after… I don’t think they are after that. I wouldn’t too.
This is what I thought! Hope it’s helpful x
What a wonderful idea. It never occurred to me. It seemed that turning Alfie into a goat was punishment. But keeping God alive would have been fantastic.
Because if she had simply put God’s brain into his body, he would no longer be himself- there was no way to preserve his memories. “God” explains this to her in the film. She is not the baby, or Victoria- she is Bella.
I’m a little confused about the timeline of everything. Obviously it’s meant to seem like Bella has lived a lifetime being raised by Godwin because developmentally she has. But I’m curious about how much time Bella did spend with Godwin, like how much time passed between the brain transplant and when we see Bella at the start of the film.
Her body was, of course, fully developed from the start, but her brain wasn’t developed enough to control it yet. I imagine in the beginning all she did was lay on her back and wave her arms and coo and cry. But the brain development arc was clearly accelerated compared to a “normal” baby’s (it’s mentioned a couple of times) and by the time we come in she’s already staggering around and babbling. Which is when an assistant to track her further development would come in extremely handy. So, I think start of the film was maybe about 4-6 months after she was “awakened”? Have nothing to back that up. Just a gut feeling.
I could see Godwin finding the body. And the movie picking up 1-4 weeks after the surgery? Max mentions that she learns 15 new words per day. And she had some kind of vocabulary at the beginning.
And I initially misread your question as how much time passes in the movie. So I’m going to include what I wrote for that, just because lol.
I think it’s actually relatively short. I brought up the script and it starts in London 1882. Another year is never given. So we can probably assume everything happens within a year, at most. At minimum, it might be a few months? Max does mention that Bella’s hair grows an inch every two days. Early on, it’s about at her wait. And at the end, it’s near her knees. If we’re generous and say “it grew two feet” then that would be 48-ish days.
I enjoyed reading this. Though I thought your take that religion wasn’t important in the film was odd, as personally I thought i spotted several religious tie ins. Thematically the story creates its own ‘holy trinity’ of knowledge, sex and power. Bella herself is christlike as she is both mother and daughter. And I thought there was something Adam and eve-like about her choosing the apple to masturbate with, tying the link between sexual liberation and knowledge – and the apple representing sins of the world vs innocence.
100% agree. I actually saw Bella as a Christ figure. The men like that try to keep her like various religions. The husband like the Old Testament vs new. The film was littered with religious references. Even the yellow raincoat at the end makes her look like Christ.
The apple symbolism is actually pretty good and hilarious. I should clarify that I think there are definitely religious aspects to it, but that the main point of the movie isn’t necessarily commentary on religion or directed toward religion.
Bella as Eve created by the God who is trying to keep her in the holly garden- the house.
Why Does Dr. Godwin let Bella go away with Duncan so easily when he has told Max that she can never leave and he has papers drawn up to enforce this?
Part of it seemed to be because he took a corpse and knew that if Bella was out and about that someone might recognize her. Duncan wanted to take Bella away. Less chance of being recognized. Whereas Max would have been staying in the city. And plus, at that point, Bella was becoming harder and harder to control.
Free will.
I’m a little concerned about the lack of conversation re Godwins bubbles.
there not only seems to be no clear reason why he’s doing this, nor why anyone who is sitting near him and witnesses this is not at all shocked or perplexed by this. Since it is a complete non-sequitur to the context of what we are watching, what on heaven or Earth does it mean??
And why isnt there more curiosity out here in the peanut gallery?
I think Poor Things borrowed a lot from Eraserhead .
They did address why God belched those weird bubbles. It was hard to catch the actual terminology he used, but he briefly described how his father removed what produced his gastric juices to get to the bottom of what they are/why we have them, and came to the conclusion that it turns out they are necessary for digestion. So either Gods dad or God himself invented the weird tube system that results in the bubble in order for God to continue being able to eat.
This movie seemed like an experiment. It was pretty sex obsessed like Tarantino’s movies are violence obsessed. It was also a harsh criticism against science like “can science’s pure logic and cynicism create any happiness in this world or it just produces poor things like those mutated chicken-pig creatures? ”
It also criticised society’s opression on women and lower classes (which still exist in the movie’s future-timeline). These are crucial issues to think about in our timeline, but can art really solve these problems? I liked those dreamlike colourful outdoor scenes contrasted to the black ‘n white indoor ones, even though this contrast was more about time or reality vs memory. It was quite original (haven’t seen anything alike), but didn’t find any solution apart from criticism.
The costumes in many ways seem to represented the complexity of the character Bella.
That’s a great point! Her fashion became more of her own.
Thanks for the discussion on what “Poor Things” referred to. I was of the opinion that the “Poor Things” were everyone but Bella. Except for Bella, all of the characters (and us) are raised in a society that sets norms and expectations (consciously and unconsciously), and those restrict our growth in some direction or directions. Bella, during her “early years”, is kept from all that by Godwin’s keeping her from those things and he tries very hard to let her learn and decide things on her own.
I think that’s a valid interpretation!
What a fantastic site this is (just found it)! It hits the kind of points I miss in the average review. Will definitely be back! Still digesting this movie. No questions or queries yet. But I did see something in the original pist that I can add to: “ When Poor Things begins, we just see some light fabric. with various pictures stitched in. It’s such an extreme zoom that it’s hard to tell what we’re looking at. But it’s probably a quilt for an infant. Specifically, Victoria’s and Alfie’s baby…” I think you’re right. But it is also (the sun has to shine and you have to look carefully to see it) the fabric of the white gown she is wearing when staggering around in very early scenes. Which, of course, is very apropos.
Thanks, Karen! That means a lot!
Oh man. When Poor Things hits streaming, I’ll do a fabric check. Good catch!
I don’t understand how religion is not a HUGE part of this? Am I the only one who sees the parallels as Bella as a Christ figure? Her husband like Old Testament religion, Godwin knew. The johns from when she is a whore parishioners confessing sin, the men who try to keep her various religions, driven mad when she doesn’t bend to their will.
At the end she is surrounded by socialism, and renewed innocence, free will, etc.
God dies in London, famously the place of buses clad with “god is dead.”
Maybe far fetched, but the emancipatory theme of the movie made me wonder: is the name Bella derived from Isabella (Belle) van Zuylen? Way back in the 1700’s she followed her own path, was one of the first Dutch women to attend university, she famously said “I have no talent for subordination”. She asked an older, famous don-juan-type for a dance and initiated the relation. Just wondering…
why did the pimp women bite bella? what’s the point of that?
Chris, I think that you have a valid idea that in the opening scene that light fabric with various pictures stitched in can represent a quilt for an unborn infant. But you can see the same fabric is on the walls of Bella’s bedroom. When I saw it, my first thought was that it reminded me of a padded cell in a psychiatric isolation unit. To abolish the use of mechanical restraint to control the patients, such padded cells started to be used in 1839. They remained until the 1960s when they were replaced with pharmacological sedation. This padded fabric in the film represents Bella’s restraint and isolation from the outer world.
Hi Chris,
Is the gender of the transplanted baby mentioned for real in any part of the story – book, movie or play? _(It is important for me to know, as I will explain later.)
1. In the movie, God always refers to it as an infant or a baby.
2. In a draft manuscript of Gray’s unpublished screenplay of Poor Things, held at the National Library of Scotland, Bella only intuits the gender:
“I had a baby once. God is that true? If it is true what has become of her? For I am somehow sure she is a girl. This is a thought too big for Bell to think. I must gown into it by slow degrees.”
What I wanted to get to is: could the transplanted baby be a boy? (I am not claiming it was but can anyone find a hard proof that the author said it was a girl? Thanks
Honestly I am glad for its existence….
and the film struck me so much that I am here writing and that is not normal for me…
BUT…it is hard to escape all of the shots of nudity of probably the most young acclaimed actress working today (Academy award winner).
Try to imagine any other profession where a 50 year old man (director’s age?) gets to tell their muse let’s have you strip 40 times, have men sometimes defile you, and show near every sex position….”Okay, how’s that sound?”
Could an old man do that at a law firm, a corporate suite, a university, a hospital work environment…..but it seems okay on a movie set? This is an extremely hard sell coming from a man’s eye.
Reminds me a bit of the movie Handmaiden and more like an old guy standing behind the lens and enjoying the process. Which is odd because a director has ultimate control (of everything) and isn’t that what the movie is all about…(or we do we miss that layer) ?
This is so embedded into our society it can be tough to even see. I mean the premise is a young Victorian (like) doctor is attracted to a woman who can’t speak and spits up food and offers literally at that point zero in a reciprocal relationship. But yeah he is attracted to her looks (sex) and that is suppose to be enough??
Mind you, that guy eventually becomes the hero version of a male…neutered and forever clapping-on as he demonstrates he has zero life needs.
There is a lot to like and I am glad it exist in the world but it does have problematic features (and maybe a lot).
This film had a long run time (Hugh Grant) and most the problems I see are when it does not work because of a lack of more subtle care in getting its in valid point across. I mean she use to stab corpses eyes out but now is in a shambles because there are poor beneath her hotel ( and seems to genuinely want her lover to throw the old woman off the deck of the ship). I do not think that is director intent, but it the problem maybe be just deftness in story telling.
***
The element of analysis. that seems to be missing from the article above is it appears to be the stages of human development. She is a baby, and at some point she is a teen wondering and learning about the world, then she is like a university student who thinks more globally, then she like many post university students must learn the reality of having to pay your own way in life.
This seems to be an arc of the developmental stages of humans (maybe more female directed, maybe with a director’s spin).
But that means perhaps too much of a pollyanna ending (also female oriented, as you could see maybe some females not so pained about idea kicking back drinking Chardonnay and just being a good person).
Because if it is going to play human arcs, the human arce often is the old get more conservative and often very cruel (the beatnik kids of the 60’s becoming the welfare reform adults of the 80’s. The young people of the wild dressing Madonna loving 80’s wanting to build a wall in the 2020’s.
If it is about arcs…then the end may hit false notes.
More than likely not intended by the director, maybe the man with goat brain is a hint of what is to come of Bella…the old man full circle return to cruelty.
If we are doing developmental stages, why miss the end cycle??
It is not a perfect film but it is a really really good film.
But that is also what they said about Brith of a Nation. They said, “WOWW this is really good…..” but look at the content ?
Pardon typos. I wrote on new phone and it’s glitchy.
In interviews, Producer Emma Stone has said that she’s a bit insulted by being questioned (often!) about her being directed by a man to do so much nudity and so many sexual scenes, because she had worked for three years on this project alongside the director, Yorgos Lanthimos. None of it was a surprise–or, presumably, objectionable–to her.
Just because a person buys in doesn’t make it correct.
This is Hollywood….can you list any other thing she could say ???
A actor being interviewed about a film is asked about any director and you will find the pattern of response in Hollywood is “yeah they are great…!”
I work in Hollywood…there is no other answer than the one she gave….Her response has been pre thought out by both her agent and her PR person prior to being asked…or she would have new people working for her…. You don’t know but even the part where she says “I am tried of…” has been pre-thought out.
I don’t mean to be tough…but people bought into concept of slaves, the Holocaust, internments…..buying into something is not a qualifier to its validity….or ask yourself how many drone strikes has the USA completed in Yemen with your tax dollars over the last 4 years ?
I want to push you a bit on this statement: “But religion isn’t a huge part of the movie.”
I wouldn’t call it a “big” part, but it is definitely a part of the film.
General Blessington arrives during Max and Bella’s wedding, which is also the first time we see a large white cross in the film. When Bella announces she’s going with the General, she is framed perfectly in front of the white cross, large and imposing in the background.
His name is General BLESSINGton. And his offer to free her of her curiosity is to drink from a cup, reminiscent of communion. All the while, the exterior of the Blessington compound contains dark cross windows across the top of the building.
The compound evokes a prison of the Victorian era where religion, in this instance Christianity, was used as a cudgel to keep women protected. As Blessington puts it, “a man spends his life wrangling his sexual compulsion. It’s a curse. And yet, in some ways, his life’s work. A woman’s life’s work is children.” This is what the moral code of the church teaches, and it is the prison that Victoria tries to escape.
Meanwhile, Godwin, her creator, is a scientist who teaches her reason and experimentation. Ultimately, Godwin lets her know that her faith shouldn’t be in either Blessington or Godwin, in religion or science, but in herself.
Oh Chris Chris Chris. Poor things are men. They are not everyone, silly. The women in the movie knew what they were about. Not so the men. I think you jumped to that conclusion because…well, you are a poor thing.
Deb, I read your statement and just see you unconsciously pointing at yourself ‘poor thing’
Chris did mention it was pointing at men and added only maybe at all of us, why did you take such offense on the comment and be so ‘cruel?’
Hence my reply above.
Clever. Agreed. However, voyeuristic enough to negate any feminist view.
I saw the term ‘Poor Things’ as the way men see women – their need to not just control, but teach and guide them, the ‘poor things’… I saw it as mocking the men’s mistaken impression that Bella (women) needs to be shown how to navigate the world when in fact it is the women in the film that help steer Bella through a life controlled by men. Meaning the ‘poor things’ would do just fine if men didn’t go out of their way to control the ‘poor things’.