Poor Things: Bonkers genius film targets the patriarchy

Yorgos Lanthimos – he of the postmodern film movement known as Greek Weird Wave – has done it again. The creative force of nature behind The Lobster and The Favourite has now given us Poor Things, based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray, and it’s pretty much off the scale in terms of weirdness.

A science fantasy black comedy, it tells the story of Bella Baxter, a well-to-do pregnant suicide in Victorian London, who is brought back to life – à la Frankenstein – by surgeon Dr Godwin ‘God’ Baxter, who replaces her damaged brain with that of her unborn child before rebooting her electronically.

Bella begins a new life with no memories of her previous one, in a fully formed adult body, but with a child’s mind that is developing at an extraordinary rate. However, she is completely unpolluted by social and patriarchal conditioning. So when she discovers female sexual pleasure, for instance, there is no shame whatsoever attached and she has an absolute openness to that – and other new experiences.

Godwin has attempted to keep her hidden, but his new assistant, medical student Max McCandles, becomes besotted with her, even as her rapid mental development makes her ever harder to control. So Godwin eventually consents to let her run off with a cad, lawyer Duncan Wedderburn, to find adventure.

This is stunning to look at, with a strong steampunk aesthetic, and all about how men do/try to police women’s bodies, sexual behaviour and agency. Every male character (and one female one) try to control Bella. It’s not always about control from a deliberately cruel perspective – it can be motivated by a need to feel protective, by genuine romantic feelings or a wish to educate philosophically – but some of the relationships are based entirely on controlling the “territory” of a woman.

Lanthimos’s film is one heck of a way to explore this. Do not watch if you are bothered by a lot of nudity (and yes, that includes male nudity) and a lot of explicit sex scenes, though these are absolutely not pornographic.

It was my longest watch for some time, but held me gripped throughout. Tony McNamara’s screenplay is excellent. Robbie Ryan’s cinematography is incredibly inventive, helping creating a real sense of a world turned upside down.

As I write this, I’m streaming Jerskin Fendrix’s fascinating, astringent soundtrack to the film.

Holly Waddington's costume design is brilliant, capturing a sense of Bella's development and liberation in a way that still feels Victorian/steampunk, while production designers James Price and Shona Heath deserve massive plaudits too.

And then we come to the cast. First – and because I don’t like to do spoilers, you’ll just have to go and see the film to find out who these actors play – praise for supporting cast members Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael, Hanna Schygulla and Suzy Bemba. Kathryn Hunter is stunning in her small role here – as you would expect, given her CV.

On to the leads. Willem Dafoe as Godwin brings real nuance to a role that, in lessor hands would – could – be very clunky and unsympathetic. Ramy Youssef as Max is charmingly naive, yet his performance always feels genuine. 

Mark Ruffalo is a (surprising) delight as Wedderburn, finding his own libertine morals turned utterly on their head by – say it quietly – a woman.

And then we come to Bella herself, played by Emma Stone. Wow. And wow again. What an extraordinary, utterly fearless performance. Just extraordinary. Simply sensational. Bella Baxter is my new household god(dess). We all knew Stone is a class act, but this is taking it to stratospheric levels.

It’s absolutely bonkers – and it’s absolute genius. I saw it today at a Curzon members’ preview. It opens in the UK on 12 January. With the provisos I laid out above – see it.