MOVIE REVIEW – The Oscar-winning actress portrays a deceased woman who is revived by a mad scientist who implants the brain of her unborn child into her head. In Emma Stone’s latest film, the Oscar-winning actress gives a mesmerizingly courageous and unique performance as a woman who has experienced death, who at first seems infantile but gradually becomes more intelligent with the growing brain of her maturing child, all the while experiencing numerous and varied sexual encounters.

In Yorgos Lanthimos’ film Poor Things, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, there is a lot of “angry jumping”. The film’s heroine, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), uses the term to describe sex. After her first such experience, when she inserts a cucumber into what she calls her “hairy affair,” a new world of adventure and tragedy unfolds before her. The film was adapted by Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara from the novel by cult Scottish author Alasdair Gray, but the universe depicted here is very similar to the director’s previous works such as “The Lobster” and “The Favourite. Using surrealism and extreme stylization, the film is a brilliant and often deeply disturbing work. Bizarre humor mixes with misogynistic violence. Bella, the innocent saint, discovers the corruption and wickedness of men. Stone undoubtedly gives her most daring performance to date, in a role that poses significant physical and psychological challenges for her.

The black and white beginning and the classic Hollywood atmosphere

The opening scenes, shot in black and white and reminiscent of 19th century London, evoke the atmosphere of old Universal horror films. Bella, initially introduced as a girl who committed suicide, is revived by a terrifying scientist, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Bella was pregnant at the time of her death. The doctor, or “God” as he calls himself, implants the brain of her unborn child into her head. This transforms her into a grown woman with childlike emotions. This is evident early on when she plays the piano with her feet, spits out her food, and laughs wildly while urinating on the floor.

One character describes her as “a very pretty strumpet.” The doctor sees Bella as an “experiment” whose brain and body are not quite in sync. Bella assists the doctor in the laboratory, but refuses to experiment on living organisms. The seemingly childlike girl takes pleasure in plunging knives into slimy flesh and eyeballs. The doctor’s home is beautifully furnished, but filled with strange animals and chicken-headed dogs.

Mark Ruffalo is brilliantly funny as the playboy scoundrel

Ramy Youssef plays Max McCandless, a serious young medical assistant who, despite his anarchic behavior, soon falls in love with Bella. However, Bella runs off with someone else: a seductive and foolish, pleasure-seeking playboy scoundrel played by Mark Ruffalo, who you might not have expected to be such an excellent comedian after his roles as Marvel’s Hulk. Their journey together takes them to Lisbon, Alexandria, and Paris, where Bella uses the trip to explore sex and adventure.

Each new city is created in a fantastical style reminiscent of the work of Lanthimos’ Wes Anderson or the old silent films of Georges Méliès. Bella consistently refuses to become a victim, often disregarding social niceties in a comically defiant manner. Like Voltaire’s Candide or Jane Fonda in Barbarella, she is a brilliant character whose childishly naive behavior continually exposes the corruption and hypocrisy of those around her.

The movie leans slightly towards ‘Emmanuelle’ in the brothel scenes

Some parts of the movie are uncomfortably voyeuristic. For example, Lanthimos takes fetishistic pleasure in showing Bella serving various older, hairier and more smelly clients after she starts working in a Parisian brothel. Despite the film’s ironic humor in handling these scenes, the girl often engages in rather intense sexual encounters. This occasionally gives the movie an erotic quality, even a “soft-porn” nature, as if we were watching a more artistic Emmanuelle, although this movie is meant to be much more than that. Despite the brothel scenes, ‘Poor Things’ is emotionally, artistically and intellectually a very strong movie. As time goes on and Bella absorbs more knowledge, she begins to understand the behavior and motivations of others. She reads Emerson and other philosophers and learns from them, even if she is shocked by their chauvinism. She embraces socialism, at least as she interprets it. She feels sorry for everyone, whether it’s the impoverished outcasts she meets in Alexandria or the Frankenstein-like doctor who created her. At times, these parts make the movie slightly didactic, but not to the extent that it becomes obtrusive or annoying.

One thing is clear: it’s hard not to root for Bella and the movie itself. It will be interesting to see if “Poor Things” has a chance at an Oscar. It may be too disturbing and unusual for mainstream tastes, but the movie is still excellent. As for Stone, she is absolutely fantastic in the role, giving her all – literally.

-Gergely Herpai (BadSector)-