In POOR THINGS (2023), a scientist resurrects a young woman and protects her as his ward, but she leaves to explore the world and herself. Artistic sets and a powerful sense of whimsy elevate the film, but overall, its single note of sexual liberation drags, with a just but pointlessly vindictive ending. For that, I fell far short of loving it.
Based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray, this is a feminist take on FRANKENSTEIN, in which a Dr. Frankenstein type (or Dr. Frankenstein’s monster himself) resurrects a dead woman with a brain transplant that results in her becoming a child. Tired of being imprisoned, she demands to see the world for herself, leading to an odyssey of discovery.
Bella is innocent, and the world she inhabits is wonderfully strange, a Victorian world that is familiar but with a slight steampunk bent. Quirky music, black and white switching to lurid colors, fantastic sets, and camera techniques such as the periodic use of a fish eye lens enhance the overall sense of dreamy strangeness, resulting in a FRANKENSTEIN meets ALICE IN WONDERLAND feel. Emma Stone gives the starring role her all, supported by a terrific cast including Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe.
The first act is just charming as hell, weird, seductive. Unfortunately, the movie simply drags by its third act. This is a young woman reborn in the Victorian era without regard for social convention, and while she dabbles in many ideas–the immorality of income inequality, how suffering builds character, and so on–she never really explores any of them to any point of consequence beyond sexual liberation, which is repeated to the point of actually being dull. There certainly never seems to be any internal conflict as Bella absorbs new ideas; conversely, her being unapologetically herself doesn’t fix the world. Regarding the sex, there are something like 20 sex scenes in the movie, and to make things even more uncomfortable, her early experiences with it are when she has the brain of a child. Similarly, some of the camera techniques like the frequent fish eye start to wear thin.
At the end, Bella learns her origins and gains justice, though it misses a major opportunity for her to become the creator with compassion, which ended the movie on a sour note for me.
POOR THINGS is one of those movies that proves that art, especially film, is utterly YMMV. I liked it a lot for its ambition, boldness, whimsy, artistic vision (it’s a gorgeous film), theme of sexual autonomy, terrific score, and great actors. The movie excels in feeling. I just would have appreciated it more if there was less Anais Nin (constant eroticism) and more a true episodic exploration of what it means to be a complete human, and with an ending that didn’t go for the easy vindictive win and instead demonstrated the sum of what Bella learned in her explorations.
Anyway, check it out yourself and make up your own mind. Even if the sum didn’t quite work for me, it’s totally worth catching for many of the parts.
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