A parent’s desire to trap their offspring in perpetual childhood is not a foreign concept to Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, whose 2009 psychological drama “Dogtooth” chronicled the dysfunctional routine of a wealthy businessman, his meek wife, and their severely infantilized adult children. The reason for the children’s folie a troix is as simple as it is bleak: the trio has been kept within the tight confinements of their family house all their lives, the world outside their fence shaped entirely by their mother and father.
“Poor Things” begins from a very similar place. Severely disfigured surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) keeps his only daughter, Bella (Emma Stone), safely guarded within the walls of his imposing London townhouse. Like the siblings in “Dogtooth,” Bella is a fully grown adult who behaves like a toddler thanks to extreme measures taken by a parent. Her childish behavior, however, comes not from isolation but from experimentation. She is the result of Godwin implanting the brain of a newborn baby inside the skull of the fresh corpse of a woman who leapt to her death from atop the London Bridge.
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If in “Dogtooth,” gullible ignorance leans towards the malign, “Poor Things” frames it as a gift. With the body of a full-grown adult and the mind of an infant, Bella has a unique perception of womanhood—ignorant of the preying desires of others but acutely aware of her own. It’s in this very portrayal of female sexuality as freed from societal constructions that Lanthimos finds the foundation for his adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s eponymous novel and in the juxtaposition between the maturity of raunchiness and infantility of youth that the director inputs some of the film’s greatest offerings of biting humor.
Case at hand: sitting by the dining table on a comically large wooden chair, legs spread and a mischievous look plastered on her flustered face, Bella claims to have discovered a way to be happy whenever she wants. She is referring, of course, to the joys of masturbation. The housemaid is aghast, and so is Godwin’s tweely-named research assistant, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), who is in love with both Godwin’s knowledge and daughter—nagged by the impediments imposed by polite society on her aching physical urges, Bella rebels. And by rebels, I mean he leaves behind England and those in it and hops aboard a boat in the company of mustachioed Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo).
Split into chapters named after wherever city Bella docks in, “Poor Things” is a fantastical observation of how sin seeps into the once tough shell of youthful jubilation. Ruffalo’s pompous Wedderburn comes into Bella’s life to introduce her to the wonders of shared pleasure and reinforce her knowledge of the masculine maladie of possessiveness. The Big Bad Wolf façade painstakingly sustained by the charmer at first threatens to engulf the susceptible girl he devours with eyes and hands and mouth alike, but Lanthimos takes time savoring the power shift in their dynamic, Ruffalo surrendering to the hyperbolic theatricality demanded from the cartoonish character in the bonkerest performance in an often undaring career.
Still, Ruffalo, at his very best, barely comes close to entering the refined game played by Dafoe and Stone. The “Antichrist” actor, hidden under layers of prosthetics and donning a heavy Glaswegian accent (the original novel is set in Glasgow), is unguarded in his demonstrations of tenderness. He lovingly caresses the hair of his full-grown daughter as he reads for her in bed, finding in the artificial human joy of affection. Stone sees in Bella the perfect opportunity to marry the comedic talent that solidified her early career in American teenage comedies to the dramatic skills that have firmly placed her as one of the most critically acclaimed actresses of her generation. Her body angles and thuds in a disjointed lack of balance as her teeny tiny brain figures out the wonders of motor coordination and contorts in spasms of pleasure as the very same brain sends waves of endorphin through every nook and cranny of her proudly shameless self.
Not only is “Poor Things” one of Lanthimos’ most refined philosophical musings, but it is his most accomplished visual work, too. Shot by “The Favourite” cinematographer Robbie Ryan in custom-made Ektachrome in 35mm, the film abandons the monochrome of its first chapter in favor of portraying Bella’s travels in bold primary colors, with James Price and Shona Heath’s wonderland of production and set design captured in all of its glorious texture, from the gritty cobbles of Lisbon’s streets to the intricate decor of a classic cruise ship cutting through European waters. The tremendous troupe that makes up the rest of the “Poor Things” cast occupies these beautifully concocted spaces in artworks of costume design, from Jerrod Carmichael’s cynical traveler Harry Astley to Kathryn Hunter’s mesmerizing tattooed Parisian madam, Swiney, plus a deliciously funny cameo by an indie sweetheart better experienced in oblivion.
Deliciously funny also feels like a fitting label for “Poor Things.” Tony McNamara weaves in biting one-liners in between poignant reflections on existentialism. Jokes on eunuchs, mutilation, cocaine, and erections are amusingly sprinkled throughout Lanthimos’ epic, a film that feels so good to be true I am half terrified of sending these words into the world and jinxing it back into oblivion. [A+]
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