Poor Things (R)
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Caution: spoilers!
This is based on a book I haven't read. The movie was quite well received by critics, but I honestly have no idea how I feel about it. It's one of the oddest things I think I've ever seen. There's also a fair amount of nudity and sex, which are things I don't enjoy watching, but it's absolutely essential for the story being told. The description I read of the movie said that a young woman had been brought back to life, but that's not exactly accurate, as you'll see when I get into the plot.
In Victorian London, a woman named Victoria Blessington (Emma Stone) jumps off a bridge to her death. Stone also plays Bella Baxter, who is in the care of an eccentric doctor named Godwin "God" Baxter (Willem Dafoe). He brings one of his medical students, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), to his home, to take notes on Bella's progress. When Max first sees her, he finds her beautiful, but also refers to her by the R-word (which I don't think he intended to be mean). God at first tells him Bella had a brain injury, but that her mind is developing at an accelerated pace. But it does take some time. When Max first meets her, her mind is roughly that of a toddler, I'd estimate. Eventually, God reveals the truth: he had acquired an unknown woman's recently-deceased body, which still carried a living, unborn baby. He removed the woman's brain and replaced it with the baby's brain. I did say he was eccentric, but the truth is he's more like a mad scientist. His father had been mad, too, and used to torture God in lots of ways for his "research", which God seems not to mind. I also said Bella's brain developed quickly... much more quickly than a baby's brain would normally develop, and I have no clue why that would be. But there you have it. It is what it is.
Eventually, God encourages Max to marry Bella, so he proposes, and they get engaged. At that point I think her mind was still that of a young child, so it's pretty disturbing that Max was in love with her. But before they can marry, God calls in a lawyer (and lothario) named Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) to draw up a contract whereby Bella and Max would never be allowed to leave God's house. This intrigues Ducan, and he convinces Bella to run away with him to Lisbon. They have a lot of sex, which Bella quite enjoys. But as her mind continues to develop, she begins to dislike Duncan as a person. But she still doesn't want to leave him, yet. He takes her on a cruise, where she befriends an elderly woman and a young man, who talk about philosophy with her. The man, Harry (Jerrod Carmichael), is a cynic, and teaches Bella how cruel the world can be, which greatly troubles her. Meanwhile, Ducan begins to dislike Bella, as she becomes more of a free-thinker. He is especially upset when she gives away his money to the poor... or at least tries to. She actually gives it to a couple of sailors who promise to give it to the poor, but I'm fairly sure they intended to keep it for themselves. Anyway, Bella and Duncan are forced to disembark when they can no longer afford to pay for their voyage.
In Paris, Bella learns that she can make money for sex, and begins working at a brothel. This infuriates Duncan, and Bella finally decides it's time for them to part ways. She begins a relationship with a fellow prostitute named Toinette. Meanwhile, God grows terminally ill, and Max tracks Bella down, so she returns to London. She still intends to marry Max, but their wedding is interrupted when Duncan shows up with a man named Alfie Blessington, who claims Bella is his wife, Victoria. She agrees to go with him, but they don't get along at all, and he is a complete ass to his servants as well as to her. Luckily, they never have sex, because damn, it might be his wife's body, but it's his own child's brain in there. So that, I feel, would have been incest, whether Alfie believed that or not. And she does eventually escape from him and returns to God's house. And... a bit more stuff happens that I won't spoil. There's not much left, anyway.
I suppose I have left out some details throughout the film, but I've revealed a lot more than I really wanted to. It's just kind of a hard movie to explain without saying too much. It's divided into different sections based on where Bella is at any time. And a lot happens. It's kind of a coming of age story for her; by the end of the movie, if not sooner, she has the mind of a full-grown, independent woman. But the whole move is just so bizarre, in so many ways. And that's cool, I guess. I mean, it's certainly an intriguing movie, even if it's also often quite uncomfortable. And it says a lot about how some men view women, which can be quite problematic. It really disturbed me that both Max and Duncan loved her when she was really a child, despite looking like an adult. But at least Max still loved her when her mind caught up with her body. Duncan hated her, when she matured, just because he couldn't control her. (Though I must admit, she did often give him just cause to be embarrassed by some of her behaviors. It's still no excuse for how he treated her in the end.) And... yeah, I don't know what else to say. It's just... I don't know what. But I'm glad to have seen it, anyway.