Poor Things Review: Heartfelt & Layered Coming Of Age Tale

Poor Things is a heartfelt, layered coming-of-age tale on monsters and belonging. Emma Stone is stunningly fearless in a career-best performance.

Fairy tales, monsters, the wonders of the world, steampunk society and all the cooky-spooky one can think of & desire. What do all these ingredients have in common? They are part of the brilliant recipe Yorgos Lanthimos has cooked up in the raunchy oddball coming-of-age globe-trotting odyssey that is POOR THINGS.

Adapted from Alisdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name, in a script by Tony McNamara (The Favourite, Cruella) this is Lanthimos’ first book adaptation, and is feels ripe for his taking: Awoman (Emma Stone) mysteriously jumps from the London Bridge down to the ruthless cold of the Thames and from here we find disfigured surgeon: Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) removing organs from a cadaver.

Who requests from his collection of employees/students that the organs be placed back in the body where they belong and calls for Max McCandless (Ramy Youseff) to accompany him home. where he introduces Max to the toddler-like Bella Baxter (Emma Stone). Without reservation, Dr. Godwin describes her as a ‘beautiful retard’.

Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Poor Things would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.

As Max spends time observing and studying physically and emotionally limited Bella, he begins to fall for her, and just when Godwin is ready to accept their love and draw up a contract for their marriage, which prevents both Bella and Max from ever escaping his home and laboratory, in comes Duncan Wedderburn: a slimy, silver-tongued lawyer who is instantly smitten by the immature Bella and exploits her ambitions and sexual curiosity, and the two run off together to see the world, where Bella discovers the cruelty of bound by notions of morality and normalcy that she dares to question and challenge along their whirlwind adventure.

Lanthimos is one of the quirkiest working filmmakers, a statement that understates the distinct voice & visuals found in each of his films, all of each so far have dared to defy story tropes and genre conventions. In his latest work, he once more delivers a melting-pot of familiar concepts: period-piece setting, classic horror undertones, black & white aesthetics, adventurous set-pieces, forbidden romances, and a coming-of-age arc for the princess-y like lead.

With so many spices to simmer to perfection it is vividly Lanthimos has his grip tight at the helm own personal weird, off-kilter playground of his own making. A cynically dark patriarchal takedown yet simultaneously wonderfully innocent tale of a princess longing for the world she is hidden from, brought to life with the unique wickedly hilarious, provocative Lanthimos sensibilities.

It’s a film that unashamedly embraces the weird, celebrates the otherness of misfits and outcasts, and is more thematically preoccupied with the “faults” and the “ugliness” that ostracises them from society and yes… places them under the thumb of the patriarchy. Lanthimos’ interests aren’t with telling the expected monster story where our hero wants to be accepted and longs to be sees as the same, but rather immerses us in a strange but fully fleshed-out, alternative 1700s London where characters of an absurdist nature are satisfied and happily live amongst others like them, where the concepts of joy, family, love, and nurture are ever present and never questioned.

The absurdist storytelling Lanthimos is known for is offered all the more layers by how well he constructs the individual characters as well as their relationship dynamics: Dr. Godwin Baxter aims to protect his “daughter” Bella from the outside world, promising her hand in exchange of her staying in their “kingdom” forever, while at the same time, her call to adventure comes in the form of the silver-tongued Duncan Wedderburn. This is Lanthimos’ brilliantly bonkers version of a Disney princess fairy tale, except our princess comes from the Island of Doctor Moreau.

Certainly a wild take on the fairy tale mythos, visually stylish with a beautiful mix of black & white sequences, POV shots captured with fish-eye lenses, an array of bursting colours and exotic locations, and a devilishly raunchy and bleak sense of humour that is bound to ruffle the most sensitive feathers, as if Lanthimos is aware of the constant online conversations surrounding sex-scenes and dares to challenge the idea of how “unnecessary” some accuse it of being, to the point he commits to deliver the greatest euphemism for intercourse perhaps ever.

It’s Lanthimos’ brazen, and hilariously riotous, way to open a discuss on sexuality and sex work so unafraid of how taboo the concept may be, and it works because it is a story told entire from the point of view of Bella who challenges the idea of her childlike wonder being extinguished by the men in her life who deem to impose their worldview onto who she can be. Playfully engaging in the ridiculous lengths his gleeful character can interact with one another and the “normal” world around them.

Lanthimos once more teams up with trusted collaborator Robbie Ryan and contrasts the thematically grimy, moral bleakness Bella is confronted with all through her journey with gorgeous dream-like vistas, beautifully immersive landscapes and immaculate production design: the streets of Lanthimos’ bizarro-Lisbon, Portugal faithful down to the stones of the sidewalks, the wide open sea is overwhelmed, the cold of 1700s Parisian streets is felt through the screen, and the entire spectrum of locations & visually imaginative color moods play a part in Bella’s compelling loss-of-innocence arc, who begins the film as nothing more than a tool of the patriarchy, brought to life by the selfish desires of a man, and is used as nothing more than a physical out-put for another’s frustrations and weakness, more and more Bella defies the ideas and rules imposed on her, and thematically on those like her and charts a course all of her own, with a tongue-and-cheek awareness just as layered a her characterization, which leaves a collections of rabid “high society” men aghast and pathetically insecure as she begins to gain autonomy, forming critical thoughts and matures.

So much of it all hinges Emma Stone’s sublime performance, instinctively understands the complex commitment such a role requires: both physically and emotionally. Her big-eyes are the perfect way to engross us into her child-like wonderment of the world and her genuine youthful naivety brings about a beauty to the story that is so clearly cherished by Lanthimos, something that refreshingly contrasts his previous works and embraces the fairy tale nature of this story.

The lovable Bella matures along this quirky yet sweet odyssey and the genuine innocence she brings to the role is what earns her transformation into a woman under her own rule. But Stone doesn’t have to play princess along as the supporting cast meet her at her commitment level, Mark Ruffalo chews up as many frames as he possibly can, presenting a level of panache and pantomime as the hysterically pathetic Duncan grows more and more manic witnessing Bella’s odd wonderment of the world never fading, no matter how low he slithers in attempts to destroy her spirit and control her.

Dafoe and Youseff both bring their own distinct sense of oddity to the film, representing the more twisted and even pure ways of patriarchal control. And while Christopher Abbot is the purest manifestation of fragile male ego, he comes in too late into the film in a sequence that slightly drags what is otherwise a tightly paced twisted odyssey of the weird but does offer one priceless punchline to cap off an effective enough narrative thread.

Suffice it to say, POOR THINGS will demand many a rewatch to peel through all its interesting and unorthodox layers of thematic depth, narrative bizarreness, endearing monsters, and fantastical wonderment. It’s a detailed and intricately crafted darkly outlandish take on the concept of princesses and the searing teardown of the patriarchy, with as much beady-eyed joy & wonderment as it is briming with cynical disdain for the shackles that bind those innocent enough to see such wonder and awe.

POOR THINGS is a twisted fairy-tale of the wonderful, the weird & the wholesome.

A heartfelt, layered coming-of-age tale on monsters & belonging. Celebrating otherness with perverse imagination, delightfully dark humor & immaculate visuals. Emma Stone is stunningly fearless in a career-best performance.

FINAL GRADE: A

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About Poor Things

Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

Poor Things comes to theaters September 8th.