Poor Things (2023) - Emma Stone Wild Ride Through a Bizarre World - REVIEW

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With all the madness going on at word I decided last night was the right time to just disconnect from reality watching a movie, Poor Things (2023) has been on my bucket list for a while, I already knew it is a good movies for all the buzz around it before and after release, those were the times Emma Stone was on fire with two mayor actors too like Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe.

I had not watch it because it look like a weird drama that is not too appealing to me at first sight but with how good this movie turn out at the box office I knew had to watch it at some point. The movie from its plot really feels like a modern version of Frankestain when Bella is brought back to life by Dr. Baxter, she turn out so awkward and even unpredictable that doesn't look like a regular human anymore, feel like there is a void inside and even something more than a soul, I really enjoy the drama and psychological aspects of it, also the kind of movie I would expect from director Yorgos Lanthimos that latter on he double down with Kind of Kindness on 2024, a movie I enjoy more for its dark humor but he also double down on Emma Stone and depending who you cask I liked more Kind of Kindess, it was a more relatable movie and sick to the head, still love both.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14230458/
• Platform: AppleTV+

Rottentomatoes Rating

Source Source From the very first scenes of the movie you can feel we entering Lanthimo's strange world, it does feel like its a fantasy or dreamlike story, there is the use of black and white for flash backs or give context of Bella childhood that gradually start changing into more intense colors almost giving you that vibe of going into the past until landing on the present, the transition as Bella discovers the world.

You can tell how the movie can be both absurd but deeply nose dive into humanity itself, all at the same time without going over the top with any of the two extends, and I think this also gets lift up by the fancy fantasy version of London, oh boy let the weirdness unleash with the hybrid animals going around, the chicken dog, the pig duck and the duck go. The movie starts to become a very exaggerated bizarre and absurd world that latter on would give us a very touching story, this intentionally works out because of the contrast between Bella and the world she lives in.

The entire world around Bella seem to be upside down and its all because of Dr. Baxter man she called GOD! well here is when you got to buckle up your seat belt because he is the responsible for all this bizarre animals, they were not born like that, he created them as scientific experiments, curious about life itself and playing God, until it was not enough and decided to do the same and that's when he takes the body of women called Victoria Blessington that washed up after she commit suicide by jumping from a bridge, when he found her she was pregnant. This is all fantasy so rules are out of the window, Baxter takes Victoria's unborn daughter brain and puts it on her body, the movie does show the fetus floating on a jar and the process of the brain transplant although doesn't really feels like a butcher cutting and patching people, because of the mad and fantasy aspect of the world does feels more like an imaginary situation, its very cliche as he then give Bella electric shocks just as how you would bring Frankenstein to life.

Source Source For sure your female Frankenstain is alive and full flesh after Baxter gives a baby the body of an adult, at first it was just as any other human growing although in this case just her mind as she is not necessarily ageing on the traditional sense, Baxter keeps her at home and there is this father daughter relationship developing but for Baxter is more than that, Bella is his creation and he is very interested on the scientific aspect of her, its here when he hires a man called Max McCandles to document Bella's progress. Poor Max had no clue about Baxter's experiment with Bella when he was hired, he was a medical student one of his own as Baxter was a surgeon so it made sense to have another Dr around her not only to document her progress, motor skills and her nutrition. As expected Max spend tons of time with Bella watching her and taking care of her and through time he develop an emotional attachment that then makes him fall in love with Bella, Baxter saw this happening and have Max permission to propose marriage but he quickly had competition, a man named Duncan Wedderburn.

The movie quickly turn into a house of pleasure, Bella discovers the sexual pleasures by satisfying herself, its also at this point when Duncan jump into the story, a very sneaky lawyer who was hired to handle the marriage between Bella and Max but he gets fixed on Bella and understood how to exploit the situation, Bella had all kind of needs so he promise her anything she could think about including going around the world full of adventures and sex, something totally different and way more exciting than what Baxter and Max had in mind for her, it was not an difficult decision to take for someone who at the time was still a teenager or less or who can imagine what was going through her brain and at what stage in maturity she was that Bella jumps in to the plan an ran away with Duncan.

Source Source As anyone would tell by knowing how things started for Bella and falling into the wrong hands, someone so special and vulnerable like her start growing her awareness of the social injustice, life is not fair and not everyone is a good person, what starts her suffering. A good example of how noble and naive at the same time humans can be before knowing the world for what it is, its when she gave out all she had her money, been generous to the poor ones only to find out she was tricked and that money never help anyone as she gave it to some dishonest ship crew members, btw this was all Duncan's money, I guess karma is a btch.

After Bella went away with Duncan on a cruise it all goes full circle when she comes back to London and goes to Baxter place, during their journey she had the chance to work at a brothel where it was expected to open her mind and develop way more and faster, its true that working on places like this where ppl really unmask reality and life itself, see it for what it is and learn how cruel it can be.

The most dark twist is not only that she finally learns the truth about her but when word starts going out a man called General Blessignton, formerly Victoria's husband before she suicide, who by the way probably hate her life because how controlling and abusive he was, at some point he lock her down because she find out he was cheating on her with their servants. General Blessington finds out about Bella because Duncan rat her out after she left him, so he now comes back and tries to claim Bella as his wife again but not only that as her property when he plan to control her sexuality by performing surgery.

You team up the last two movies of Yorgos Lanthimos with Emma Store and damn you have a world full of weirdness, madness and sex. Some of the drama felt cliche and predictable but it was also very extreme and physical, the psychological damage on Bella and how Baxter never plan to when this could go out of control, similar to some vampire movies that say never to turn a kid into a vampire because things can go really wrong. Injecting all that kind of knowledge and experience into such a young not very well develop mind all at once, its just too much to handle reason why everything that could go wrong actually happens until Bella start to realize the true face of life, its here when things start to slow down a bit for her but then again the story keeps pushing more madness until the end. In my opinion it was a great movie and the action was awesome, even though Duncan was a real btch I like more Mark Ruffalo playing Duncan than his role on Mickey 17, for me a 7.5/10, its just a personal take because the movie tends to be too bizarre for me to fully enjoy it but I cant say no to someone who find it a 10/10, a movie that I would watch again but only with someone else, almost like telling them "you want to watch a weird movie??

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