BY MAX WALLER
My immediate first impression after watching Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Poor Things’ (2024) was that it is essentially an expensive, surreal and hyper-expressionist Hammer horror-style movie for the 21st century with a considerable number of Tinto Brass-like sex scenes thrown in for good measure. Whatever aspirations it has to say something meaningful I’m not so sure it succeeds but it certainly attempts to have its cake (as both art house film and monster movie combined) and eat it. It’s up to us, the audience, to decide whether it successfully digests its own ambition as a film without suffering severe reflux as a consequence, similar to those surreal burp bubbles that Dr Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) expectorates at the dining table.
If you were to throw into a conceptual blender Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ and Hogarth’s ‘The Rake’s Progress’ with a dash of ‘Greystoke : The Legend Of Tarzan’ and ‘My Fair Lady’ then you have a rough idea of the type of story that ‘Poor Things’ ventures to tell. The underpinning theme throughout the entire film, however, is the now hoary (pun intended) trope of a woman attempting to break free from the shackles of a fiercely patriarchal society as the feckless, horny and occasionally psychopathic men in her life do what they can to control her.
And yet Bella Baxter, similar to Tarzan, remains untameable throughout much of the film and challenges the male dominated orthodoxy that tries to mould her in its vision. The fun for the first half of the movie is watching someone who essentially has zero impulse control wreak havoc in social situations while slowly her self awareness/enlightenment grows due to the circumstances she finds herself in that organically teach her the nature of sex, human suffering, love and death.
Thematically, there is plenty to chew on but the cumulative effect leading to its final conclusion seems somehow empty and unsatisfying. Maybe this has something to do with Lanthimos only utilising relatively basic archetypes (similar to a fairytale) to tell the story based on the novel by Alasdair Gray. Still, it’s entertaining in its hyperactivity as the film’s attention deficit approach is sensibly propelled by the fizzing energy of its female protagonist who could be perceived as a sort of proto-feminist.
Personally, I found it disappointing that with three such exceptionally strong leads in the film, the supporting cast (of Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott) seemed incapable of matching the standard set by both Emma Stone (in her best over zealous drama student mode) as Bella Baxter and Willem Dafoe as Dr Godwin Baxter, to say nothing of Mark Ruffalo’s hammy Dick Van Dyke impression as the buffoon, Duncan Wedderburn, who has as much love for the ‘c’ word as he does lust for Bella.
The only thing missing from the madness was a digitally re-animated performance from Vincent Price. He could have been perfect as one of Bella’s customers at the Parisian brothel where she later works in the movie. Perhaps, then, the film would have connected itself to its rightful Hammer lineage rather than the somewhat pretentious and lofty, arthouse self-importance it strives for in attempting to say something deeper than your average monster movie, which when you boil it down is all it is, except it uses sex instead of violence to compel the audience to keep on watching. I suppose where Bella ultimately succeeds is in controlling herself and her impulses and so, if seen as a feminist parable, then ‘Poor Things’ achieves its aim somewhat ham-fistedly.
One thing is for sure: if there was to be an Oscar given to an intimacy co-ordinator then it surely should be given to Elle McAlpine.
Max Waller is a Gloucestershire based writer who has dabbled in film, opera and theatre. Having suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune on the periphery of Hollywood, he is currently developing a fresh new slate of creative projects in 2024 along with several collaborators and hopes to help restore some sanity with his keen weather eye for the cultural zeitgeist, tradition and occasional whimsy. His blog Digital Renegade features an eclectic mix of short stories, cultural essays and personal remembrances.