The Favourite, which is the only Yorgos movie I liked out of the two I have seen so far, the other being The Lobster, which was just really not my thing. I do really wanna watch Poor Things soon though, and I really hope I end up liking it.
This scene struck me as well. I loved that the guitar lady was obscured by the railing of the balcony. It made her look like she was behind bars-- imprisoned just like Bella.
Just like a child experiencing something mesmerizing for the first time, Bela was completely in awe staring at the woman. Not caring what's Going on around her, forgetting everything that she was gonna do or did. It sooo much reminded me of a kid and it's reaction to these circumstances
One of the more nuanced things I loved from this film was how the Bella at the end is liberated in a way where she has also learned you do have to respect some conventions of society, that you can't just be this ball of chaos and Id. Like, part of liberation is also recognizing you are a part of society, if that makes sense.
In a way perfect liberation is perfect solitude. With no society, you have no obligations to other people, but also no connection to other people. While this is a kind of freedom, it is a sad and empty one.
@@richardsteiner45feel like you projected a lot of your own preconceived notions onto a comment that simply said the nudity was excessive but they enjoyed the film
The general audience will probably burst into laughter whenever Dafoe throws them random information like an encyclopedia hitting your head. That was my experience watching the movie.
@@richardsteiner45 i think the problem is you think a nude woman is the same as soft porn. if you watched the movie, you'd know it's nothing like that, but you'd rather be a contrarian hater of "the kids" instead of appreciating art
I liked how honest Bella was, even when it was dangerous to be honest, even after she had seen how cruel the world can be, she always told the truth about what she wanted to do. I thought she was very brave
It was as faux-complex and as clumsy as Bella Baxter's first steps, as loosely connected and non seamless as Godwin's face and as awkwardly put together as a Frankenstein's Monster. Poor things were the audience who could see through the glitter and could not ignore the cracks. No deep theme forced upon us was ever handled with any depth leading towards any resolve! Halfway it even began to drag narratively leaving only the glossy surface to dwell upon with nothing substantial within. These viewers of FrankenHooker are routinely and completely in agreement on what exactly was wrong with the film which justifies the realization that objections are not simply an individual's subjective ideas being express. They are collective rational & cohesive responses which is everything the film is not.
one of my favorite aspects of this film was seeing how each of the men in bella’s life viewed her and how it connected to her own liberation, be it sexual or otherwise . god (although he loved her) viewed her as an experiment, duncan viewed her as a sex object, and alfie viewed her as a baby incubator. despite being absent for the better part of the film though max is easily the best man in her life. he’s the only one that allows her her freedom of self. yes he’s obviously apprehensive about her traveling but once he’s reminded she is her own person despite her unique circumstances he lets her go as she pleases. he refuses to be with her sexually until they’re wed so he doesn’t feel like he’s taking advantage of her, thinks nothing of her time as a whore, and let’s her go off with alfie even when they’re about to be married because he knows it’s what she wants to do. at the end they don’t make a big deal over the two of them reuniting and defining their love because that’s not what the story is about. it’s about bella and her discovering the world and herself and max is there on the side to support her and treat her as she’s supposed to be treated: like a human.
This sounds like a feminist fantasy. Sexual liberation is a lie. Sleeping around is demeaning and it leaves women feeling used and horrible. Sex work is a disaster for those involved in it. I’m sick of the feminist narrative that is ruining the lives of men and women. Sex is sacred and beautiful. This movie makes it to be something casual and unimportant. Also, if the make/female roles were reversed it would be considered misogynistic.
@amysill3815 I agree that sex work is a mess. Women who are celebrities showcase their sexuality, and claim that it empowers them. The problem is that they display their sexuality as a finished product that has been pushed through the bottleneck of the male gaze. It gives many women the false belief that a male gaze centric display of sexuality is empowering. It is not, it will never be. This is also why sex work is exploitative. Pimps still largely control female sex workers, and often use forced drug addiction to keep the women trapped. On top of this, men and women on the outside blame the sex workers for succumbing to a male run system, paid for by men. Men pull the strings, they pay for the act, and male pimps collect profit from the female worker. There is nothing empowering about any of this. It is all for the male gaze, it is all for the sake of power. That being said, I don’t think this movie fully embodies these ideas. Bella is exploring herself, has the capacity to seek freedom, and explores sexuality in the only way she knows how. She is messy and not adhering to the traditional norms of femininity in many ways. That being said, she does act out sex through the only safe network she is shown. This network is upheld by patriarchal standards and involves sex work. So yes, and no. It’s complicated. She has freedom, but only within the bottleneck of patriarchal norms.
@@shannont7461she didn't claim it was indicative of everyone. i will add that what she is saying has some truth to it, there is not one aged old woman who looks back on their days of promiscuity fondly while also living in good health, spiritually and mentally. it is an unfulfilling lifestyle that just leaves a person emptier than before they start living that way. even the main character in this movie starts to become more clued in spiritually by learning more things about the world and reading, and sex becomes a thing to not take lightly. max is generous for looking past all of it but never insinuates that he'd be fine with her continuing to be so "loose" once they're wed, even the movie itself makes their relationship the primary goal. even the premise of the movie in a sense goes along w what amy's saying here, though there is also a weird stigma around women being objects sexually that are either pure or whores while men are not held up to the same social standard.
Isn’t she mentally a child for most of the movie? Idk man everybody thinking the movie is super empowering or super degenerate might be missing the point. I thought the point was that societal norms are arbitrary and exploitation is bad. It just uses hypersexuality as a means to explore these lenses. Movie wasn’t really my thing but I find the discourse very interesting.
Saw it last night. I've been pining for it for months and was not disappointed. Absolutely stunning on every level. Emma should win everything for this. One of the bravest, most truthful performances I've ever seen, and in the service of a truly outside piece of work. No mean feat.
Exactly my thoughts. It filled all expectations i had and i kept thinking Emma needs to win an Oscar for this. Probably gonna see it again, it was so magical
A baby getting railed for 2h and something is stunning? Okay. Guess we have lost all sense of morality apparently. Men fucking a baby for most of the movie is now brave. Sick sick world.
I enjoyed Poor Things but was frustrated at the end with how they handled the young doctor. The man fell in love with a *literally* infantilized woman and that relationship was free to continue.
i keep seeing this take but i think it runs into the problem of seeing the "infant brain" as literal rather than metaphorical. He fell in love with a woman w no real life experience, who desperately wanted to escape and understand herself. The "baby brain" is just the fantastical outer coating to bring together the sort of frankenstein story of self discovery
@@CidGuerreiro1234I think the movie didn’t do the best job at portraying that. I personally got it and I know Max said he wouldn’t have sex with her until they’re married and both ready
He apologized to her, and said nothing of the marriage until she asked about it. He acknowledged his mistake lol. Seriously you all are trying to paint all men as pedo and creeps and groomers when in some particular situations they are not. Max apologized, acknowledge her growth, and accepted her for who she is without judgement . Technically she is not a child, this setting is just a device of "what if a new human / brain comes alive and lives without a preset of beliefs and with fresh eyes". There so many stuff and details in the movie that can prompt our philosophy and thinking and all you see is pedo. You all just can't find one single beauty in this world
Well, I think you missed the point then. The filmmakers just needed a tabula rasa brain in a full-grown body, a brain not tainted by the propaganda of gender roles and other society rules. It was not a sci-fi film...
@@gabewhite9182I feel Bella jumped from age 4 to at least 18 after she screamed at Willem Dafoe in the carriage. It threw me off when she started speaking complete sentences, I’m guessing yorgos jumped her mental age to avoid criticism.
Can anyone please explain whats so amazing about this movie? Every single video I saw on it praised it as one of the best movies to come out this year. I saw most of it in theaters and walked out. The amount of sex scenes felt excessive and unnecessary, and it didn't actually feel feminist to me or my girlfriend whom I saw it with. I understand that the movie didn't support how Mark Ruffalo's character was taking advantage of Bella's mental age, but having her continue to have sex and call it "furious jumping" when its unclear what her mental age throughout the later parts of the film are felt really horrible and uncomfortable. I loved the set design and I thought Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe had great performances, but the script felt so one note to me at least. Maybe I am missing something? Can anyone please explain their take on it?
I am trying to figure out the same thing also. The first 15 minutes had me hooked. Frankenstein but with a child's brain. This is going to be Awesome. And then came the 2nd act and yikes. But I kept hoping it would get better in the 3rd hopefully with a ending with a big Payoff. Nope. I walked out after the ending of the movie scratching my head and saying to myself. Did I watch the same movie these reviewers were saying its a Masterpiece?
Not sure at what point you walked out of the film but Bella eventually rejects Mark Ruffalo's character which hilariously destroys him. It was a little over-long and probably could have used a trim (I'd have to rewatch to determine where) but definitely worth sticking around for. She actually grows into a very intelligent woman. As this reviewer says, it's not preachy, which could explain why you missed the feminist aspects.
I 100% agree with your take on the movie. It absolutely disturbed me the whole way through. I can in no way see how becoming a prostitute is a pro feminist act. Wacko
@@saltyrealism But "becoming a prostitute" wasn't shown to be a "pro feminist" act whatsoever though. That act overall explored how there's not really anything like an "easy way" to make it within society. Sex work is the easiest to showcase as directly exploitative work that someone can do in order to pay the bills. Movie isn't making a moral judgement, it's just showing you "yep this is how it is and it can suck balls".
I thought the same thing. I was not a fan. Also i found it slow and over-indulgent. Genuinely boring and problematic but everyone is raving about it. I feel crazy lol.
The thing is it’s not a woman. It’s a baby controlling a woman’s body. I get that it’s supposed to be a blank slate without all the restrictions that come with being a child, but it comes off as maybe a certain kind of phile’s dream of what an infant would do if it weren’t “encumbered” by laws concerning age and consent. I’m not saying that this was the director’s intent, but with all the criticism of film characters who are portrayed through some other’s “gaze” (ie. manic pixie girl, Uncle Remus, etc.), why does this get a pass? This movie may be well made, but if you don’t happen to believe that every cloth you unravel will reveal some perfect form underneath, the sexually explicit adventures of a baby in a woman’s body is pretty creepy.
It's not advocating fetishization. The pacing and order of certain scenes are meant to draw attention to this. We learn that Bella is actually a child just before we get introduced to her introduction to sexuality. This juxtaposition, could be interpreted as a paedophilic gaze if handled poorly, but the context around all of these things is the way that her body is infantilized and her innocence/appetite for the world is fetishized by the men (the assistant and Wedderburn). It is clearly critiqued almost exactly at the same time as the idea is introduced. Therefore, it would be very disingenuous of the film as a whole to dissect it so narrowly. The overarching villain of the movie is the desire of men to conquer and control the wildness of a woman, which is her sexuality. It is simultaneously the object of desire and the ultimate insult, all depending on the way the female is submits herself or not. When Bella eventually becomes a whore, she understands this drive as something that she can exploit to sustain herself, but it brings her no joy because the drive she is subverting is still aimed squarely at destroying her. So yes, there is plenty of weirdness and fetishization. To say this is somehow the view of the director is even more weird though. You might also think that he supports the creation of dog-geese because they exist in the film as a device to support the thesis.
Im really lost with the interpretation of this film, the female sexual liberation through prostitution is a cliche from a mans perspective. she had no choice, it was her only desparate option but its shown as a powermove. she has skills that she could have used that the movie ignores intentionally in this instance, not even showing concideration. when she works in the brothel she doesnt learn from the darkside of the job, je is shown to just deal with it and is shown to look happy and satisfied, there is no nuance, there is no option to interpret the twisted scenes as somehow damaging her because she either smiles it off or stoically barges through. I do not know why Yorgos needs to put a childs brain in these sexual situations while only romanticizing it, he doesnt let any character notice the odd p3d0 relationship she has, and we dont see a negative impact on the abuse she goes through, only some strange forced fake feminist nimpho hunger for "furious jumping". It is completely unnecessary to involve a childs brain in so many sexual scenes, as if the world for a women to explore is 80% sex, that time is past, redundant message. but sure if we want to show that path, why show her nude so fuckingoften, i cant enjoy a movie with such fenomenal visual detail, if im bombarded by nudity of someone with the overly naive mind of a child. it's not justified. the movie tries to make the men look weak after being torn appart by Bella's words, but it feels like an excuse to make her get out of abuse without inward retrospection. visually art, naratively a confession without real showcase of concern for the main character.
My girlfriend took me to see this in theatres and I couldn’t agree more. I was extremely uncomfortable the whole time, It felt like a girl pretending to be mentally handicapped for 2hrs.
i didnt really interpret the sex work as empowering or depowering, it seemed like it was just another experiment that bella wanted to explore to its fullest until she tired of it and found something else. Her experience with sex work was the same as her experience reading and discussing philosophy with new friends or exploring her past life, it fascinated her and so she pursued it.
Not sure how this movie can be called "not preachy", when she is shown to be at her peak when she becomes a lesbian socialist. It's almost laughable how much this movie is trying to appeal to Hollywood politics without actually saying something original. The visuals of the movie are excellent, but the themes of female liberation and empowerment are weak and cliche. "Girl power" is just using sex to get what you want from men - truly groundbreaking stuff.
that's entirely the point... you're suppose to feel discomfort and disdain for the people taking advantage of her, but as the film unfolds you see that she's effectively in control the whole time. Soundslike you didn't watch the movie?
I’m one of the people who got up and walked out. I couldn’t get past the pedo-adjacent aspect of it. Left about 30 minutes in when Godwin gave her away to Max, who had been lusting after her despite knowing she literally had the brain of a baby. Too gross for me.
💯 !!! It gets even worse in the later parts. In one scene a father screws her in the brothel where she works while his two young sons sit there and take notes „how women work“. 🤮
The more I hear about this movie the more unbelievably hyped I’m getting. Unfortunately I’m probably not gonna get a chance to see it till after Christmas but will certainly be rushing to the week after
I didn't think I'd describe a film such as this as a crowd-pleaser but man was my theater eating it up. The was consistent laughter and palpable enjoyment from the audience. I don't think I've ever had this kind of experience with an arthouse film, especially as weird and bonkers and over-the-top as this one. But I guess that's a testament to Lanthimos as a director that he was able to absorb us into this world for the first 20 minutes and all the insanity make sense for the characters inhabiting this world. I loved every frame of this movie and it skyrocketed to my number 1 of 2023
I've had a really interesting experience with this movie at the cinema. Many people were laughing and enjoying themselves but there were also a couple of people who walked out of the movie entirely. I've never experienced that in my years of going to the movies so far. Very fascinating.
It was as faux-complex and as clumsy as Bella Baxter's first steps, as loosely connected and non seamless as Godwin's face and as awkwardly put together as a Frankenstein's Monster. Poor things were the audience who could see through the glitter and could not ignore the cracks. No deep theme forced upon us was ever handled with any depth leading towards any resolve! Halfway it even began to drag narratively leaving only the glossy surface to dwell upon with nothing substantial within. These viewers of FrankenHooker are routinely and completely in agreement on what exactly was wrong with the film which justifies the realization that objections are not simply an individual's subjective ideas being express. They are collective rational & cohesive responses which is everything the film is not.
My point exactly ! Most of the movie is about a literal kid in an adults body ,discovering her sexuality by constantly having sex with multiple strangers , and breathly finding out about other aspects of life , like , basic human interaction ,society sadness ,disappointment , forgiveness and stuff , but those are only some quick comments between all the sex and prostitution . I literally couldn't bear myself to eat my burguer until the boat kidnapping thing.
she's not a normal human, nor do any normal rules apply to this world. she has an adult body and a mind that evolves rapidly and the entire point that is staring you in the face is her independence and autonomy. she has an adult brain after her sexual awakening, she's just not familiar with societal norms.
watched this recently and it's a certified bonkers banger. also an interesting film in conjunction to the series The Curse where Emma Stone is losing sense of self in the show while finding a sense of self in this film. love the work that she's doing in two weird realms, Yorgos and Nathan Fielder!!!
do you still think she was mentally a child by the end of the film? perhaps there was some intended symbolism going on in this abstract movie covering abstract concepts? Mayhaps it's not meant to be a literal representation of what would happen if you put a infant mind into an adult body?
@@loopholesloopy Yeah, it's not like children that are sexually abused don't eventually become adults no? They all gotta start somewhere, no? WTF is with that argument? When she has her first sexual experiences she can barely string sentences together.
I really appreciate your work Karsten, it is great to have such a thoughtful and well spoken reviewer in the online space because I feel they're hard to come by. You dig a lot deeper than initial reactions or just making memes. Whether or not I agree with your reviews, I always get something out of them and in the years to come, I wouldn't be surprised if you become one of the most essential american voices in current film criticism.
I couldn't get through the movie, since the movie is about the mind of a child in the body of a grown woman and she is exploited sexually by men. which is borderline pedophilia which gave me the ick and I couldn't watch it.
the movie about a babies brain being placed in a grown woman's body, and the brain develops really fast. A brain is just a brain, you treat a baby like a baby because it's helpless and needs help, and it takes ages for that baby to grow up, but place it in a grown woman's body that already knows how to walk and talk and all of that, the brain just needs to get used to it, but the body is already capable, she is treated like an adult by the people she comes in contact with, because she looks like an adult, so because that's the interactions she's getting she's not thinking like a child, she acts childlike with her wonder for the world and she loves to learn, but no one treats her like a child, they don't know she's got reanimated, they just see her as an adult woman.
@@The_Tortoise_and_the_Hareyah what they don’t know is that they’re interacting w a mental child. Yah she’s adapting to her body but her understanding of the world is still that of a child. She literally calls sex “furious jumping”. If I was w someone and they were acting like a kid I’d be like bro wtf r u doing. Please stop. Not “wow how sexy haha”. This movie is an example of why people think Hollywood is full of pedos, and it is.
@@marlin303 well I loved the movie and wish I was as free as her. I thought her way of viewing the world and our societal rules refreshing, because she didn't give a crap.
I am getting this idea that poor things is a secret sequel to Frankenstein. Godwin never says what his fathers name is, but we assume is last name is Baxter as well, however, we do know that Frankenstein's monster did become literate and smart by the end of the novel, so what if someone approached the question of what happened to the monster after the novel. So my theory is after the monster killed his creator, he returned to the life he knew, he became a doctor and did experiments just like his father, and oddly enough we see the same revelation when Bella does the exact same thing, which makes me wonder if our fates are tied to our past. Godwin Baxter is Frankensteins monster.
the books arent even written by the same author so this is by no means an actual sequel. gray's fetish parody of frankenstein could never be close to shelley's original
@@helixxia9320 That is why I said it's a secret sequel. I know it is not written by the same author. By no means does the story ever come out and say it is a sequel to Frankenstein. The tale of Poor Things is so far disconnected from Shelley's Frankenstein that it is its own thing. However, I feel as though breadcrumbs are laid in the story to open my imagination to the possibility that Dr. Baxter is Frankenstein's Monster.
@annanowak9620 he becomes very smart in the book. Victor dies at the end and the creature mourns his death. The creature tells the Captain that he will burn himself on a funeral pyre. The last thing the Captain sees is the creature on a raft drifting out to sea. So we don't actually see the monsters death at his own hands in the novel. It's implied. Enter Dr. BAXTER in Poor Things. He knows how to reanimate the dead. He looks as though his father took him apart and put him back together a million times. So maybe the creature lived, traveled back to Victor's home, became the new master of the house and continued on with Victor's legacy, just like when Bella returned to Baxters home to continue Baxters legacy, a tragic wheel of fate. Soon Bella will find an experiment that will continue her legacy.
Poor things gave me hope for the film industry. I haven’t seen a movie I actually liked in theatres in a very long time before I saw it. I’m so excited for what is going to come out of it as a film student, for once I am excited where this industry is headed.
Same!! Just got back from it and I was shocked to see the theater so packed! The viewers were cracking up throughout the whole thing and were invested til the end. Made my heart skip a beat
I’m right there with you. This is a film that really seems to take a step forward. For so long the film industry has been stagnant, and will probably continue to be so, but this film being funded, completed and distributed in theaters gives me hope.
I absolutely adored this film. It’s uniquely a Lanthimos film, but still different from anything else he’s done. Got to see it in a packed theater and there were probably 5-6 walk outs but everyone was buzzing about it after. Can’t wait to see it again!
It was as faux-complex and as clumsy as Bella Baxter's first steps, as loosely connected and non seamless as Godwin's face and as awkwardly put together as a Frankenstein's Monster. Poor things were the audience who could see through the glitter and could not ignore the cracks. No deep theme forced upon us was ever handled with any depth leading towards any resolve! Halfway it even began to drag narratively leaving only the glossy surface to dwell upon with nothing substantial within. These viewers of FrankenHooker are routinely and completely in agreement on what exactly was wrong with the film which justifies the realization that objections are not simply an individual's subjective ideas being express. They are collective rational & cohesive responses which is everything the film is not.
@@blakehawk Of course but as I stated, I do feel justified by other negative critiques of the film having opinions exactly as mine. I feel that people are blinded by the look & weirdness of it and simply ignore that it's shallow within
@@wendellwiggins3776 I mean, you can feel justified all you want. That’s your subjective interpretation and more power to you. I got quite a lot out of the film and thoroughly enjoyed what it was saying and exploring. If you engage with art in a way that leads you to not like this film, then great, I just don’t see what you get out of going on a diatribe on my positive comment. Like, at the end of the day, who cares? Let people like what they like and type whatever you want on your Letterboxd account.
@@blakehawkCurious to know what you got because most of it seemed contradictory and never resolved much of anything. But I have so problem with it being liked by some. My issue is with it being hailed as some masterpiece
just saw this movie and came back to hear your thoughts. went into this completely blind after my roommate asked me last minute if I’d like to see it tonight after my shift. it took a moment to get comfortable with the movie but by the time it all broke into color we were in it and I was hooked. emma’s performance and the cinematography in this were beyond incredible I don’t think I’ll stop thinking about either for a long time. I hope this film can get the recognition it deserves for the technical aspects and performances. and shoutouts to martha and harry best side characters.
Almost walked out of the theatre, but was there with someone and have never even thought of walking out a film before, had to see how it would redeem itself. Just the bomb of “fate had brought me a dead body, live infant” God drops about how Bella came to be had me reeling, then the immediate not at all child like masturbation scenes. Next half hour was sub 10 year old grasp of language and what my brain could only interpret as r slur jokes. I was bamboozled. Like I watch and consume disturbing stuff I’m not a prude but I was like physically sick watching. Once I started to settle into the Paris section which felt like she had actually become an adult cognitively, I was thrust back to London where I lived in fear that a incest plot was about to unfold and I was sick again. Anywho it’s definitely a fantastic made film, but I have never been so poisoned by an early moment in a movie that made me struggle to enjoy the following masterful imagery and world building. I’m sure I’ll watch it again, but feel like I’m going crazy reading all the ‘they clear it up, she is advancing cognitively so quickly’ umm sure but when ruffalo arrives she’s still a toddler level grasp of language when he ‘pinches’ her. I could tell while watching woman had no hand in the writing, and sure how everyone just shines how great a feminist work this is. Sure she discovers herself and gets a good life in the end but even McCandles is a bad dude. THEY JUST MADE ANOTHER BELLA WHEN SHE WAS GONE, it wasn’t even a one time thing these people are a bunch of Josef Mengeles. like did McCandles stand there while God did the most fucked up thing happen all over again bc God was bored. The main idea of the film I was left with is what Harry tells her on the boat about how “we are a fucked up species”, which when I heard that I was like that’s something fucked up people who are evil tell themselves to feel better about themselves. That line to me shows the philosophy of the film maker because no one helps or protects Bella, all the men take advantage of her over and over even. Just because she dumb luck survived the most heinous events doesn’t mean it’s a happy ending, she needs to get McCandles and Prim away from Margaret Qualley ASAP bc they are both evil and complicit.
i never shook the feeling of child exploitation throughout the whole film. even when she became more "functioning as an adult" because Im not sure how much time has passed or how old she was when she left, but she was still a kid and there is no way that she went from a kid to at the very least a legal adult in the time she was gone. to me this was a very roundabout way to make child porn without making child porn.
Just want to say child like maturation is an interesting term considering most people become securely active before they're 18, so what else would you expect it to be.
The film just came out in my country yesterday and I saw the first screening. I can't articulate all the things it made me feel, but by the time the end credits rolled around, I was full on sobbing and whimpering. Beautiful, beautifl movie.
The fact that they were heavy-handed and repetitive is precisely the point. Bella's character is shown to think about nothing BUT sex at that stage of the movie until she realises there's other ways to enjoy herself.
I KNEW I wasn't the only one who saw a parallel between Lanthymos and Anderson! Also I see the film as, in part, a deconstruction of the "born sexy yesterday" trope. Like, how would this male fantasy play out in "real life?" What I mean is, if we follow logic (as is prioritized in the trope), will that naive, logical-minded super-genius really worship you? Oh, yeah, heavy critique of positivism here, too, which I'm always here for.
I watch this saturday and its been at the top of my list in terms of anticipation all year. Emma stone tends to pick great projects, loved the favorite, i need this film injected into my bloodstream as soon as possible.
i saw this on october and honestly the more i think about it (and i thought about it a lot) the more it gets better. its somehow the funniest movie i've seen all year, while also being very deep on its themes, and emma stone has my favorite performance of the year (and its a carrer best, tbh). she's so goofy and lovable, but also so weird and vulnerable; she portrays bella's evolution throghout the movie in a very special way, and i cant think of anyone who could have done a better job than her, considering her chops to physical acting i do think however that the movie overstays his welcome a little bit and gets a bit tiring by the end. i also think its a very creative and abstract premise that focus too much on sexuality and gender, and sometimes it looks like its going to develop another side and it just abandons it completely. i know its the point of the movie, but at some point the message was so reinforced that it started to sound like yorgos was too much self-aware as being a man to the extent that it was starting to look not honest at all, like he was saying "uh hey girls yeah sorry for being a man" and not really reflecting about it anymore maybe i just need a rewatch tho - and i really want it soon
I’m worried about watching this movie because of the Born Sexy Yesterday movie trope. It’s basically a sexually mature woman who is infantilized or foreign to her environment. This trope makes me so uncomfortable, and I wonder: Does this movie lean into that too much?
During the first half of the film, she acts extremely immature since she has a young mental age (e.g., inability to form proper sentences). I felt it was very weird that there are many sex scenes during this stage of her development. While I don't think the movie tries to objectify her much, and tries to empower her more over the course of the movie, I do think it fits into this trope at least somewhat. I would discuss more but don't want to spoil.
I don’t think so - I think the film directly questions why the men in her life find her infantness sexy and casts judgement upon them/makes them look foolish because of it.
In a lot of ways I’m the ideal audience member for this film. I’m a film student who loves surrealist, groundbreaking films that take on feminist themes. I’m also a huge fan of Yorgos. Undoubtedly I had very high expectations going into this film and I have to say I was really disappointed. It took me so long to mourn the fact that I didn’t love this movie as much as I wanted to. I think the sex scenes took me completely out of it. They were Hollywood, exploitative sex scenes that felt so out of place. What about weird, surreal sex scenes a la Akerman? The scene where she discovers that children are dying was so goofy and I don’t think intentionally. I have no clue where this film lands at the end.
“as it´s literally kind of about a woman kind of discovering the world for the first time and what it means to exist as a woman in the world“ yeah, that´s exactly why I thought it was shockingly disappointing when it came to the plot. yorgos takes that premise and wraps it up with the moral “if a woman existed without preconceived notions about the world or her role in it she would *always* want to have sex with every man who touches her without her consent (imagine a child brain. it would get annoyed if it didn´t want to „“jump“ as bella calls it“ anymore and vocalize that (unless it was terrified because it was being sexually abused). she would not ponder injustice in the world and have an existential crisis about it or deep feelings and fears about it that exceed one night (and what? five minutes of the film max?). she would not have to (*especially as a sexually liberated woman*) have to face exceeding amounts of sexual harassment and assault, only judgement (yorgos was like “oh wait, I know what the only problem women face is! It´s when you guys get slut-shamed. let me put that in there as the main sexism). she would also not menstruate, that´s for the weak bitches that don´t want to have sex every hour of every day (they´re not feminist enought). and she would not have to worry about contraception and everything that goes along with that (unwanted pregnancies! which all of a sudden become part of the plot when it serves yorgos to show the one reaaally bad man and how he wants to impregnate bella against her will, but contraception (once again along with sexual assault) is not a topic at ALL when it comes to sex work. cause why would any of those have to do with each other, nah, sex workers don´t have to deal with any of that, they actually are having the time of their lives 24/7 (that is so evidently the perspective of a person who has never spoken to a single sex worker or looked into the conditions and realities of it). Since those things don´t serve to shock people as much as naked emma stone does yorgos just couldn´t in any way have them in the film. and the peak state of this woman with nooo preconceived ideas about the world and her (gender) role in it would be living in a mansion, drinking a martini, never having thought about the state of the world or the injustice in it again and having a girl there as a servant who has also had her brain exchanged against her will! wow, bella baxter is such an icon, so cool, so unbothered, so unbiased because she has her child brain and no real issues exist, there´s only pleasure and this one bad man who is now a goat, feminism lives to see another day awee. no. I also think it´s so typical to have one particularly “bad man“ sort character, to show that “yes, there are really bad men. look at him, he´s the epitome of a terrible man and I´m going to make that incredibly obvious and on the nose and then have him get his revenge to show that I am a better man and there are just some terrible men (exceptions), it´s not a systematic problem or anything, it´s just this one guy who wants to have her clit removed for shock value for the audience. I also feel that almost eeeeverything yorgos does in this movie he does for shock value, which makes the film so much weaker, in my opionion. Everyone in the comments is going „I´d never seen anything like it, it was so crazy, so niche and alernatively cool“ yeah, it aimed to shock and not actually develop the story well, in my opinion. If you choose shocking your audience over everything else….that´s so the easy way out?? At the beginning of the film I was (number one really excited an unbiased btw) really enjoying the screenplay and the actors, but that scene on/off the boat AFTER she has her breakdown about the conditions that poor people live in and the injustice in the world (which I thought was great and was really going somewhere, to discuss how one could even be an idealist in a world like this (so relevant rn!) and how children process things like that) was where the film started to go reeeeally downhill for me. the women I know think so much about the fucked up state of the world and are so empathetic and heartbroken and desperate to change things and bright and frustrated and existential and always thinking about this kind of stuff. about how we can better the world. and bella just goes “oh yeah, I did feel sad there for a sec, but I´ve decided it´s actually all good and I can make small-scale change (which I will not, in this film, I will just have a lot of sex and not menstruate or have to deal with contraceptions or pregnancies or abortions or sexual assault tehe) and I´m super idealistic even though I was just shown breaking tf down but toodles and off to paris!“. what a male view of female emancipation and liberation and what a disservice to women everywhere, oof, tone-deaf and ignorant and…written by a man at best. It´s also hilarious to see people who hated barbie for its pink and plastic surface, when they didn´t understand half the metaphors and little references and moments in it that were such brilliant points by greta gerwig, love this for it´s shocking, unconventional, “niche“, “you just wouldn´t get it cause you´re not a film bro“ surface, when below that aesthetically enticing and much less internalized-misogyny-awakening surface „“poor things“ is a very well written and decorated incredibly basic second-wave-feminism male fantasy of female liberation. how very ironic. And how sad to have your film end up relying on things like set design, costumes etc. to lift it up when the plot fails so badly. I wanna emphasize that I was so ready to love this film, truly. and I WISH a film about women and freedom was doing this well, but it´s so emblematic of how the (film) world rewards work, that this film, that a man wrote and directed and edited, about women´s role in society and their possible liberation“ is doing SO much better than work by *women* on this, because it just LOOKS more film bro-ey and feminist because it´s less pink.
WOW BANGER OF A COMMENT! Couldn’t agree more! Especially the point about Barbie you made also irritated me! Barbie was „man-hating“ but this shit is a „masterpiece“? You got to be kidding me! I don’t say Barbie was a masterpiece either, but it certainly got women across a lot better. There you can see that films that center a man’s perspective are somehow considered better than films from a female perspective. At least Barbie showed that women flock to cinemas in droves when there actually is a film made for US, not a pseudo liberating movie that only thinly veils the male fantasy of abusing women and they even like it. Male power fantasy.
I walked out of the movie. I’m not really a fan of watching a mentally ill girl get taken advantage of. Idk if seen enough of it in real life that it’s not some fantasy it’s just sick. Sick someone would even write a story like that
You do know that just because someone includes a negative action in a film doesn't mean they want to preform or endorse that action in real life right? The point of the film was that these people where cruel, the movie is called POOR THINGS not HAPPPY THINGS. Wow it's almost as if the movie was trying to say something about it!!
@@jamesjones5023 I assume you just don't like watching movies that covers serious topics. Obliviously the narrative is a bit weird and sickening, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone would be uncomfortable watching it, just how someone would not be comfortable watching murder or seeing blood within a film, so I understand
I agree that the execution and actors are flawless. I guess my issue is with the source material (that I haven't read), or whomever wrote the script. It's a child having sex for two hours. The cruelty of Victoria could have been explored but isn't. Which we discover very late. Does it explain why she behaves like so much of a sociopath? Exploring the world is largely equated with fucking. What bothers me is that all the content on RUclips talks about half of the movie and ignores the rest, which is a child, then a teenager fucking. There are very few moments of wonder about the world (idk, like the sun rising, sea water being salty, a storm, snow...), the screen time is literally mostly about fucking. So, ultimately, I think it's a terrible book / story. The movie felt like pimping the hell out of some shitty ass minivan: no matter what you do, your source material is still shit.
Few films have made me angrier than that one. I know that's (partially) the point, but Jesus Christ I wanted to scream at the protagonists so fucking loudly.
I can't stop thinking about this movie and I don't want to. It shot its way to my top five just like that. It managed to be delightful even in its darkest, most questionable, goriest, saddest moments. You just want to eat it up and then have it for dessert. I love when you're so captivated the whole time that then you emerge from the theater like you're still in the dream - Pan's Labyrinth did that for me and so did Poor Things.
Yup! The main character was a pregnant woman who died and the doctor puts the babies brain inside her body to ‘save’ the baby, then it’s a bunch of men taking advantage of a child in a woman’s body, and they’re calling it a feminist masterpiece, I don’t like this movie
It’s not the same it’s similar but also very different Bella is not narratively a tool Other people objectify her but the story itself doesn’t She’s not really good at anything at first she changes and grows The main character is not the man who falls in love with her and the man who falls in love with her is in no way her mentor All the people who end up using her as a tool end up miserable or dead
I've got to rewatch this one, because as much as I found it to be an easy-going experience, in terms of appreciating the ride and understanding everything, and as much as it was gorgeous to look at, I was left rather disappointed at how at the end the message seemed to be too spelt out for you, it was also very one-note, repetitive, and quite simplistic as well, and (at least to my eyes) not so challenging, as I didn't think it provoked any thought, it just told me things I knew were wrong and should not happen; basically a preaching to the choir...
This is another film that won't get a wide release in the UK until next year, but I've wanted to watch it since that first trailer. This video makes me even more excited to see it.
One of the reasons why Lanthimos' films fail to win me over, is because they rarely make me feel something. The tries to dazzle with overt visuals & ornamental spectacle, which are only intriguing for the first 30 mins , but never lets me feel any real emotion. I find his films to be artistic exercises, but intellectually incomplete, and emotionally absent. And Poor Things seems to me the perfect example of this. Maybe if I also had the brain of a child who was blind to pedophilia and plot substance then I may have liked it too!
I just watched it today and I really did not know what I was getting into. This film was way too intense and it did not hold any punches and I came out like “what the hell did I just watch?” But in a good way.
I love watching your videos because you can clearly articulate how I felt about most movies, and I agree with you 100% on Poor Things. I don't think it will, but I would be very happy to see it win Best Picture.
He seems to be inspired by Jeunet and Caro (Delicatessen, Amelie etc.) They again claimed to be inspired by Terry Gilliam (especially his timeless masterpiece Brazil).
If you guys enjoy this movie you should give the book a shot. It’s tedious at times but the paratexual elements deepen the themes of the story. There is a frame story missing from movie that is pretty crucial which was a bummer for me personally. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK THAT AREN’T IN THE FILM IF YOU’RE CURIOUS: ……. …….. …….. ……… ………. Bella’s story isn’t real. She is a fiction written by McCandless who is now married to Bella / Victoria. Victoria asks for the book to be unpublished because it is fiction and it would take away from her life. The fictional editor in the frame story then instead of respecting her wishes tries to find all the evidence he can to PROVE she is Bella and she lied about it being false. Because why would a man believe a woman when she tries to tell her story and truth. if that all sounds intriguing to you give the book a shot.
Bella goes some distance with her own self developing. In the beginning, when she sees another living being, like that frog, shes immediately like "kill it!". And slowly goes all the way to break down when she sees children suffering in Alexandria.
The movie is incredibly gorgeous. I left the movie theater. Happily pleased with the ending and its cinematography, its conceptual production, its plot, the acting, and costume designing is a beautiful pop surreal gift that was given to the world. I wish there were a lot more films like this that had a beautiful twist. I am 100% re-watching it.
I am usually driven away by media that deliberately tries to gross me out, so the fact that I was glued to the screen while watching really shows how good this movie was. The audience around me had mostly the same reaction. You could hear the crowd ebb and flow between uncomfortable awkwardness, to empathy, to honest laughter and back again. Every time I started thinking "okay this scene is too much" it would go in another direction and lead to something interesting or funny.
I think the reason it works so well is that the gross out stuff is portrayed in such a frank way. The brothel montage shows all these scenarios and fetishes that most film makers would play for shock and mockery, but yorgos shows them with empathy and understanding. And that lens makes all the difference.
Poor Things is "challenging" to say the least. As a woman, this film made me feel like going through the most nightmarish odyssey possible, but through the eyes of someone so innocently enthusiastic. I admire Bella for always taking the wheel, but still can't help and feel like she's being taken advantage of the whole way. It's hard to feel liberated about the ending for me, as a lot of the trappings in Bella's life is still present despite her being free off it. I probably relate most to Harry's character who only see the world wrapped in cynicism. Still, at least Bella got to choose her own path.
Cinematography, hairstyles and acting are great. The plot is sick. Disgusting. It normalizes pedophelia. Sex should be sublime. This movie makes sex an abomination. I hated it.
It doesn't normalise anything bro. We're not sheep. We're not gonna watch a movie or tv show that sympathises with a really bad person (Walter White from breaking bad for example) and have the takeaway that being "maybe making drugs isn't so bad". Movies should be able to deal with serious topics, because at the end of the day, it's purely fiction.
my girlfriend whose autistic was crying in the first fifteen minutes, feeling like the bella character was so deeply an allegory for neurodivergent people, that is was offensive in its use of her character traits as a gag. But as the film went on, and the objective view of Bella shifted to Subjective, the story became more empathetic for autistic individuals and how the world forces conformity on neurodivergent individuals (something the film directly references with the constant lines about polite society). Even so, she is unsure of whether she loved or hated it, and whether it was a step in the right direction for neurodivergent representation or a step backward. I'm interested if any other viewers on the spectrum had an adverse reaction to the film
One of the things I loved the most about the film is how it forces the viewer into Bella’s perspective. Narratively you’re meant to see her from the outside (from the point of view of Max Mccandles, most notably), but everything about the framing and the montage, the music, the use of black&white vs colour-literally every cinematic tool is used to put you in Bella’s shoes, so that even though you understand why the other characters behave the way they do, you automatically sympathize with her point of view. Her actions are perfect logical, whereas everyone else is being absurd. Whether this makes for good neurodivergent representation ( or whether it’s moving in a “good” direction) is kind of missing the point. I read it very much as being addressed at neurotypical people, because of, as you pointed out, the move from objective (Bella is weird and alien) to subjective (her actions and logic make total sense, actually, and it’s everyone else who’s being weird) point of view. The movie tricks the viewer into living her experiences as perfectly normal, given her circumstances. This is something that’s very typical of Victorian satire, too: appeal to a sense of propriety and normalcy while ruthlessly destabilizing all those very rigid norms into absurdity. And throughout, my main litmus test for judging things like representation is A) to what extent is the character not unidimensional (and I think we can all agree that Bella Baxter is nothing if not a very complex and multifaceted character), and B) is it kind? I think the movie is very kind, especially towards Bella, but also towards other disabled or marginalized characters-God, for example, or the prostitutes. They’re all deeply weird and deeply complicated people whom the film makes you love just as deeply, mostly because they, in all their complexity, are also ultimately kind characters. Even at the beginning of the film, when Bella is presented in all her awkward, clumsy outside-ness, the score I think did an incredible amount of heavy lifting in building compassion and love for her. Despite the black and white and her inability to express herself, it was the film’s way of saying “look, isn’t she lovely? See her in a kind light, please.” Is it good autistic representation? To me it was, but despite being neurodivergent myself I always hesitate to read media in that kind of totalizing way. I think the film does a good job of being about an individual. I also think it’s important not to forget that the film is about a lot of things on top potentially of neurodiversity: including the very nature of science and objectivity as well as sex work, socialism in general, etc. I think the film is fundamentally about kindness, and kindness + complexity will always be, in my opinion, the best recipe for representation of any character, whether marginalized or not.
Another thing I would like to add, in afterthought: I think it’s also important to understand the film’s humour as being satirical, in the sense that you’re meant to laugh at all the neurotypical characters rather than at Bella, most of the time. I get why your girlfriend reacted the way she did-of her experience makes her relate on such an immediate and intense way to Bella as a character, especially in the beginning, then it gets hard to pay attention to what the film is doing on a structural level. But even in the beginning I personally was laughing at Max McCandles getting hit in the face by a “pretty retard” rather than at the “pretty retard” for hitting him in the face. And again, this is a kind of satire that is *very* Victorian in how it pushes “proper” behaviours and morals to their logical extremes, therefore pointing out how absurd they really are. The humour at the beginning is meant to make the (assumed) neurotypical viewer deeply uncomfortable because of how matter-of-factly it presents socially unacceptable behaviours, sex, nudity and gore: it is meant to destabilize, before it can normalize Bella’s behaviour. For the rest of the film, you’re laughing at the gap in between how weird everyone suddenly seems, and how normal Bella is in contrast. But if your girlfriends experience is that the world is a deeply unkind place for neurodivergent individuals-which it is-then it makes sense that she would read the humour at the beginning as being unkind as well, and directed at Bella as a character. I read it as more situational-the gap in between Victorian rigidity and the total Id of a child in an adult’s body, which then develops into social commentary and criticism. I like how much the film mobilizes compassion as opposed to empathy: even though you’re laughing at everyone else, you implicitly understand both why Bella acts the way she does, and why everyone else is so thrown for a loop. That, mostly, is what I mean by kindness. The film goes to great lengths not simply to make you feel the way she does, but to understand her logic and therefore point of view. The world must accommodate her just as much as she must accommodate others-unless they’re sadistic husbands, in which case she may transplant their brains into goats.
As a neurodivergent woman, this movie missed the mark for me. The beginning felt like the same kind of insidious sexualisation I grew up with, being taken advantage of because I was different and couldn’t tell that sexual activity with an older person was wrong.
Women in the spectrum often get sexually abused, because they can’t always defend themselves. This shit show of a movie even advertised abusing mentally impaired women! My son is on the spectrum and he knows that it is wrong to touch children.
So well done describing Poor Things. No other critic I've seen, and it's now 9, captured the film in all its aspects as well as did you. One point in support of your appreciation of the cinematographer: in a rather long interview with him he described the many different lens and even broader array of different film stocks that went into this film. It's not about watching through one or a few lenses. The lens and many film stocks were chosen to achive an ambiance for this or that scene, yes, scene. We feel the transition but cannot call out the transition.
This video made me head to the theater yesterday and watch this movie. I am so glad I did. I haven't loved a movie this much in so long, god it was so fucking good. Words cannot describe.
Did I miss the timeline in the movie? Like what was the timetable between God finding Virginia and specifically when Ruffalo coaxes Bella to go off with him? That might be an issue I coulda have with the story if the timeline is not wide enough.
I watched the movie today. Not sure what my opinion is yet. I have to think more about it, but there's something that has kept me thinking and it's the fact of the amount of sex scenes. I didn't quite understand why it was so important to show the amount the director decided to show. Could anyone explain why does sex has to play such a big role in this movie? what's the meaning of it? So far I have a feeling that maybe it was too much and in some parts maybe it wasn't needed.
i guess the short answer is that there's so much sex because its about sex. its not only there just to add some allure to scenes like in a lot of movies, its just About Sex, and plenty of other things but that's one of the main things. the longer answer is I think an accurate and helpful way to look at the sexual aspects of the movie is to think of how they're so closely related to the societal and existential aspects of the story, like the anxieties of adults who have grown around and into schools of thought that protect them from the harshest parts of life, like the cynical assistant of the female writer on the cruise, or Doctor Godwin. when Bella masturbates for the first time, she says something along the lines of "Bella learn how to make self happy". its a popular way for many people and many schools of thought to conceptualize masturbation (idk to what extent i agree but it makes sense) and because the sex is so frequent and consistently present throughout the movie, especially in Bella and her journey, it relates sexual autonomy directly to the parts about physical, mental, spiritual, social autonomy and so on. its about both the sexual and social aspects of sex work, like when the owner of the brothel shows Bella her granddaughter and talks about having to prioritize across money, enjoyment, dignity and intimacy to take care of you and yours. a part i loved was how when Bella and Duncan are first shown having sex, the soundtrack is this loud, blaring, exuberant, celebratory but also really chaotic orchestral thing. later in the movie, when Bella becomes a prostitute and has her first client, its dead silent, purely a transaction. but over time she starts trying to exercise her autonomy and express herself despite her situation. she cracks jokes, they prance around or draw (i think there was drawing? you get the point) and as the emotional and expressive depth of sex and the enjoyment of it starts coming back, the music comes back too. long comment and all but i really love this movie and i hope those parts of it click for you too
@@ploue589See but what you think is great about the movie is exactly what people don’t like. My girlfriend took me to this movie and I had no idea what the name even was until I showed up. I like to think that I understand completely what the movie was trying to tell me and I didn’t think it was done well. Because you have to have this whole mental framework and look for these double meanings when you watch it. for instance the first sex scene you mentioned in comparison to the transactional one was something I noticed as well but I thought it was very obviously intentional and because of that not good, no nuance. Like the video said it felt very stiff so everything happening was very “in your face”. for example, the title cards were beautiful, but thats it, they had no other purpose in the movie. alot of great directors will never waste a second unless it means something to the movie. And because of those type of things you could really tell the movie was trying to be great instead of just knowing its great. a good story is good on its own, it shouldn’t need 3 different lenses and colour shades. Because if you were to take the movie seriously from the start you would have to be ok with a babies brain in an adult woman. that took me out right away and to then have that woman be forced into the sex trade by poverty while being mentally handicapped means that you have to look at the movie knowing its not real and being ok with it. which is perfect if your mind is already not in the movie because your constantly looking for double meanings and telling yourself “oh that was done well”. instead of actually being in the present moment. I really did try to give this movie a chance because my girlfriend seemed excited about it. And honestly I don’t think it was awful, it was nice to look at at times. but a good story will show you values and make you enjoy it without noticing. it will not make you look at uncomfortable things in order to “force”you to look for the deeper meaning. I think the main problem is people think that thats what thinking deep actually is. when thinking deep isn’t something you control, its something that happens when your faced with extreme external circumstances. and good art/movies will make you do that effortlessly.
Saw this at an early screening last weekend. LOVED it Never realized a movie with Gwen Stacy, Hulk and Green Goblin could be so weird. Life is full of surprises.
At first, I was a bit apprehensive about the visual effects. I originally thought that the fakeness of the sky made the movie look like Fortnite, but then as I kept watching, I saw it was more akin to an old oil painting with those wild, sweeping and colorful skies. This film is beautiful.
lol I thought it looked like real life world of warcraft which I was very happy about because I've always wanted to see what it'd look like in real life
I just saw the first 90 minutes of this movie, when I walked out. I had had enough of the brutal sex in the bordello and the gallons of blood used in the operating room. Maybe there is a deep meaning in the movie, which I missed, but when a movie makes me so uncomfortable, who cares? Anyone agree with me?
I keep hearing Frankenstein. The thing with Shelly’s Monster is that he is a monster and remains a monster thru the story. In Poor Things she changes, grows and becomes a whole different creature. It’s a truly remarkable film with great acting.
I couldn’t agree more! I love when a movie stays with me long after I see it. That’s why I’m on YT watching all of the commentary I can find about it. I loved this movie.
Too much sex. At MINIMUM, if you remove 50% of the explicit sex scenes you can still get the message across. Like if they had started kissing and cut to during pillow talk. As a woman, this is how I felt about it.
Kind of defeats the purpose of defending sexual liberation when ur over sexualizing a child-like grown woman. Hollywood needs to get away from pedophilia
@@MadameCorgi no. The reviews I read and was given by friends all said it. It's a woman with a brain of a baby who has sex with a bunch of men. It brings up questions of consent and abuse of people who are mentally handicapped.
The problem I had with this movie is there a good number of scene are painfully bizarre and annoying to get through. But basically the second half of the movie while being heavy on the sex is very thoughtful and thought provoking. The overall look and filming of the movie is almost magical. But god is most of the first half of the movie hard to watch. I would say while this isn't a movie for everyone, this is a movie real ones.
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the new Chicken Run film. Personally, I was very disappointed with it's weak storyline and even most of the comedy fell flat.
I just watched Saltburn with my Mum. To say a few scenes made it an awkward experience would be an understatement. Maybe I won’t watch this one with her 😂
I feel like this movie got better as it went on. I was really struggling with the beginning of this movie… everything is so weird and emma stone’s performance as the more childlike version of bella is really bizarre. But from moment she runs away, the movie keeps revealing more and more depth and I ended up loving it
I was worried this would be another “born yesterday” fantasy, but your review seems promising. I can’t help but be a little skeptical when male, artsy directors try to speak on female experiences, granted, I’m not that familiar with this director.
You should be skeptical. Unfortunately you shouldn’t trust a male review. Many women reviewers are very disappointed in this film and it’s view of sexual liberation. It has a very male view of it, showing a woman with the mind of a baby being railed and learning that she loves sex through event that would traumatize an actual woman. Obviously I don’t want to generalize, but if I see a lot of women saying this isn’t a feminist film and that is is actually disgusting, then I’m going to believe them.
Are you also skeptic when female directors try to speak on male experiences are is it just that good old "sexism is actually A-ok when it's backwards" shtick that is all the rage these days? Because I'd hate to be ghe one to break it to you but some people have been gifted with that magical thing that allows you to put yourself in other people's shoes. I think it's called emp-something
@@yt.byliamI understand the skepticism but I feel like you should watch it yourself if you want a proper view of what the movie is. I can assume there’s some awkward stuff in it but i also think there is something to it.
@@antlerbraum2881 trust me, I was very very very excited for this film and a part of me rlly wants it to not be what I think it is. However, I also have a thing of getting queasy during instances of sexual violence, which I heard is depicted in the film, however I could be wrong.
@@MJGianesello I never said that men shouldn’t tell women’s stories, I said that Lanthimos, McNamara, and Alisdair Gray have the wrong view of feminism. I think they should have truly educated themselves a bit more and gotten women’s EXPERIENCE in their writing. I’ve seen many women mention how they were disappointed that there wasn’t even one mention of menstrual blood, a crucial part of the experience of cis women. If a woman wrote a film about toxic masculinity or the loneliness of men, but had input from men she knew and truly educated herself on the experience, I wouldn’t mind. If you’re going to empathize with a community, actually learn about the community from people in it. Even as a man, I make sure to clarify that I could be wrong about this movie, because there are probably women who found it liberating. I just personally find the idea of a woman with the mind of a toddler being taken advtange of and sexualized, only to come to love sex, a little fucked up and inaccurate from a lot of the women’s experiences I’ve heard.
I did not expect to like this film as much as I did, but in fact, I absolutely LOVED it! So many hilarious moments (that dance scene!) and the visual images... the fantasy versions of familiar cities and the skies were a work of art. Also, the serious message was there and as you said - without the preachiness! I saw similarities with Barbie - female character constructed and brought to life explores the world. Both dealt with feminism but Barbie felt too preachy (the monologues - ugh!) and it had a distinct men v. women vibe with the Barbie/Ken war, whereas Bella's conflict is primarily with the societal norms imposed on women. Poor Things was visually superior and the acting far surpassed Barbie. Definitely one of my faves for snagging a best picture Oscar.
Did a double whammy of watching (and loving) The Favourite, then shortly thereafter seeing (and loving) this, without realizing they had the same director... I don't watch movies so much. I go to the theatre instead. This fall I saw an incredible staging of Strindbergs "A Dream Play" and I found Poor Things life affirming in much the same way I found that one. The interest for what it means to be human, the poetry of a lived life, for this strange depiction of the world and its inhabitants... I have to assume that the original novel is at least in part based on A Dream Play - the notion that we should feel sorry for the humans as we bumble through life in all our delight and misery is a re-occurring phrase very much mirrored by the way the title "Poor Things" frame the movie. So many thoughts. Absolutely wonderous movie.
This woman is coming into her own, and of course, the male director makes her maturity exclusively about sex. I'm not surprised this male reviewer found the movie "deep'
Exclusively about sex? Are we just going to ignore the themes of exploring and deconstructing polite society, socialism, the limits that women are given such as education in many countries/fields, and Bella’s unwavering choices on many topics besides sex? I’m not sure why this topic is latched onto so much when clearly there is much more to the film that supports its socialist feminism themes.
@@gabewhite9182 These people think everything at surface level, I don't think there's any point explaining the themes to them. If you asked them to write an essay about it all they could point out is what colours and shapes appeared in the film.
took my boyfriend and our mutual friend to see this, all of us with no idea of what it was about. all we talked about afterwards was how incredible it was. one of my favorites for sure
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
what's your favorite yorgos movie?
poor things
the killing of a sacred deer!
The Favourite, which is the only Yorgos movie I liked out of the two I have seen so far, the other being The Lobster, which was just really not my thing. I do really wanna watch Poor Things soon though, and I really hope I end up liking it.
It was Sacred Deer but after a rewatch this might top it. Love that freak.
I'm sure Poor Things is going to be my favorite but rn it's The Lobster.
I love the scene where Bella is walking theough Lisbon and sees the woman playing guitar and singing. That was just wonderful.
This scene struck me as well. I loved that the guitar lady was obscured by the railing of the balcony. It made her look like she was behind bars-- imprisoned just like Bella.
The scenes in Lisbon looked like painting my Grand Mother had on her wall. The designers must have had a ball doing this movie.
Just like a child experiencing something mesmerizing for the first time, Bela was completely in awe staring at the woman. Not caring what's Going on around her, forgetting everything that she was gonna do or did. It sooo much reminded me of a kid and it's reaction to these circumstances
Made me cry for real
first time i got goosebumps in the movie
One of the more nuanced things I loved from this film was how the Bella at the end is liberated in a way where she has also learned you do have to respect some conventions of society, that you can't just be this ball of chaos and Id. Like, part of liberation is also recognizing you are a part of society, if that makes sense.
I’d say that’s the number one theme of the movie for sure
I screeenshoted this comment because it was so profound.
I don’t feel liberated in any way with society.
In a way perfect liberation is perfect solitude. With no society, you have no obligations to other people, but also no connection to other people. While this is a kind of freedom, it is a sad and empty one.
That is the most violent undercurrent of the film.
No general audience member is gonna prepare him/herself for the amount explicitness in this 😭
i thought the same thing
emma stone is naked 60 percent of the time its so dumb (i still liked the movie tho)
@@richardsteiner45feel like you projected a lot of your own preconceived notions onto a comment that simply said the nudity was excessive but they enjoyed the film
The general audience will probably burst into laughter whenever Dafoe throws them random information like an encyclopedia hitting your head. That was my experience watching the movie.
@@richardsteiner45 i think the problem is you think a nude woman is the same as soft porn. if you watched the movie, you'd know it's nothing like that, but you'd rather be a contrarian hater of "the kids" instead of appreciating art
@@gummyfangyeah and I know you’ll say anything to dodge culpability in the culture you support
I liked how honest Bella was, even when it was dangerous to be honest, even after she had seen how cruel the world can be, she always told the truth about what she wanted to do. I thought she was very brave
Yes 😊
yes she is the feminine hero we all needed but never got wirhin our childhood fairytales.
It was as faux-complex and as clumsy as Bella Baxter's first steps, as loosely connected and non seamless as Godwin's face and as awkwardly put together as a Frankenstein's Monster. Poor things were the audience who could see through the glitter and could not ignore the cracks. No deep theme forced upon us was ever handled with any depth leading towards any resolve! Halfway it even began to drag narratively leaving only the glossy surface to dwell upon with nothing substantial within. These viewers of FrankenHooker are routinely and completely in agreement on what exactly was wrong with the film which justifies the realization that objections are not simply an individual's subjective ideas being express. They are collective rational & cohesive responses which is everything the film is not.
@@wendellwiggins3776 Could you elaborate 😀😊?
@@wendellwiggins3776 aiight, cool
"willem defriend" is an amazing joke, well done.
Yeah... It gave me a double take ha
Really good and well delivered
this joke was actually coined by callmekevin
@@wherkazitwasnt it's been around forever
It is not new.
one of my favorite aspects of this film was seeing how each of the men in bella’s life viewed her and how it connected to her own liberation, be it sexual or otherwise . god (although he loved her) viewed her as an experiment, duncan viewed her as a sex object, and alfie viewed her as a baby incubator. despite being absent for the better part of the film though max is easily the best man in her life. he’s the only one that allows her her freedom of self. yes he’s obviously apprehensive about her traveling but once he’s reminded she is her own person despite her unique circumstances he lets her go as she pleases. he refuses to be with her sexually until they’re wed so he doesn’t feel like he’s taking advantage of her, thinks nothing of her time as a whore, and let’s her go off with alfie even when they’re about to be married because he knows it’s what she wants to do. at the end they don’t make a big deal over the two of them reuniting and defining their love because that’s not what the story is about. it’s about bella and her discovering the world and herself and max is there on the side to support her and treat her as she’s supposed to be treated: like a human.
This sounds like a feminist fantasy. Sexual liberation is a lie. Sleeping around is demeaning and it leaves women feeling used and horrible. Sex work is a disaster for those involved in it. I’m sick of the feminist narrative that is ruining the lives of men and women. Sex is sacred and beautiful. This movie makes it to be something casual and unimportant. Also, if the make/female roles were reversed it would be considered misogynistic.
@@amysill3815ah yes, your experience is of course the only one and 100% representative of all women
@amysill3815 I agree that sex work is a mess. Women who are celebrities showcase their sexuality, and claim that it empowers them. The problem is that they display their sexuality as a finished product that has been pushed through the bottleneck of the male gaze. It gives many women the false belief that a male gaze centric display of sexuality is empowering. It is not, it will never be. This is also why sex work is exploitative. Pimps still largely control female sex workers, and often use forced drug addiction to keep the women trapped. On top of this, men and women on the outside blame the sex workers for succumbing to a male run system, paid for by men. Men pull the strings, they pay for the act, and male pimps collect profit from the female worker. There is nothing empowering about any of this. It is all for the male gaze, it is all for the sake of power.
That being said, I don’t think this movie fully embodies these ideas. Bella is exploring herself, has the capacity to seek freedom, and explores sexuality in the only way she knows how. She is messy and not adhering to the traditional norms of femininity in many ways. That being said, she does act out sex through the only safe network she is shown. This network is upheld by patriarchal standards and involves sex work. So yes, and no. It’s complicated. She has freedom, but only within the bottleneck of patriarchal norms.
@@shannont7461she didn't claim it was indicative of everyone. i will add that what she is saying has some truth to it, there is not one aged old woman who looks back on their days of promiscuity fondly while also living in good health, spiritually and mentally. it is an unfulfilling lifestyle that just leaves a person emptier than before they start living that way. even the main character in this movie starts to become more clued in spiritually by learning more things about the world and reading, and sex becomes a thing to not take lightly. max is generous for looking past all of it but never insinuates that he'd be fine with her continuing to be so "loose" once they're wed, even the movie itself makes their relationship the primary goal. even the premise of the movie in a sense goes along w what amy's saying here, though there is also a weird stigma around women being objects sexually that are either pure or whores while men are not held up to the same social standard.
Isn’t she mentally a child for most of the movie? Idk man everybody thinking the movie is super empowering or super degenerate might be missing the point. I thought the point was that societal norms are arbitrary and exploitation is bad. It just uses hypersexuality as a means to explore these lenses. Movie wasn’t really my thing but I find the discourse very interesting.
Saw it last night. I've been pining for it for months and was not disappointed. Absolutely stunning on every level. Emma should win everything for this. One of the bravest, most truthful performances I've ever seen, and in the service of a truly outside piece of work. No mean feat.
Exactly my thoughts. It filled all expectations i had and i kept thinking Emma needs to win an Oscar for this. Probably gonna see it again, it was so magical
A baby getting railed for 2h and something is stunning? Okay. Guess we have lost all sense of morality apparently. Men fucking a baby for most of the movie is now brave. Sick sick world.
This movie is one of the best films ever made. Hands down
I enjoyed Poor Things but was frustrated at the end with how they handled the young doctor. The man fell in love with a *literally* infantilized woman and that relationship was free to continue.
And it went completely unquestioned and unchallenged throughout. This movie excuses paedophilia, it's disgraceful.
i keep seeing this take but i think it runs into the problem of seeing the "infant brain" as literal rather than metaphorical. He fell in love with a woman w no real life experience, who desperately wanted to escape and understand herself. The "baby brain" is just the fantastical outer coating to bring together the sort of frankenstein story of self discovery
She was clearly aging (mentally) much faster than a regular child. This should have been obvious.
@@CidGuerreiro1234I think the movie didn’t do the best job at portraying that. I personally got it and I know Max said he wouldn’t have sex with her until they’re married and both ready
He apologized to her, and said nothing of the marriage until she asked about it. He acknowledged his mistake lol. Seriously you all are trying to paint all men as pedo and creeps and groomers when in some particular situations they are not.
Max apologized, acknowledge her growth, and accepted her for who she is without judgement .
Technically she is not a child, this setting is just a device of "what if a new human / brain comes alive and lives without a preset of beliefs and with fresh eyes".
There so many stuff and details in the movie that can prompt our philosophy and thinking and all you see is pedo. You all just can't find one single beauty in this world
Dafoe plays God so effortlessly that I'm starting to believe he's the son of God himself.
we all are brother
@@b1g_m00n I want Dafoe to be my daddy.
Well he did play Jesus lol
@@jonathanprideaux2776 That's the joke.
Dafoe has played Jesus before
It's really disturbing when you realize she's a toddler trapped in an adult body doing all this.
I couldn’t get over this hurdle, and in the end, the movie was just not for me because of this
Well, I think you missed the point then. The filmmakers just needed a tabula rasa brain in a full-grown body, a brain not tainted by the propaganda of gender roles and other society rules. It was not a sci-fi film...
For the first quarter of the movie yes, that all ends rather quickly though since she ages fast on a mental level
@@Savvaoffhmmm a tabula rasa brain… aka a little kid, who is getting sexualized by multiple men. That’s the point? Hmm
@@gabewhite9182I feel Bella jumped from age 4 to at least 18 after she screamed at Willem Dafoe in the carriage. It threw me off when she started speaking complete sentences, I’m guessing yorgos jumped her mental age to avoid criticism.
Can anyone please explain whats so amazing about this movie? Every single video I saw on it praised it as one of the best movies to come out this year. I saw most of it in theaters and walked out. The amount of sex scenes felt excessive and unnecessary, and it didn't actually feel feminist to me or my girlfriend whom I saw it with. I understand that the movie didn't support how Mark Ruffalo's character was taking advantage of Bella's mental age, but having her continue to have sex and call it "furious jumping" when its unclear what her mental age throughout the later parts of the film are felt really horrible and uncomfortable. I loved the set design and I thought Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe had great performances, but the script felt so one note to me at least. Maybe I am missing something? Can anyone please explain their take on it?
I am trying to figure out the same thing also. The first 15 minutes had me hooked. Frankenstein but with a child's brain. This is going to be Awesome. And then came the 2nd act and yikes. But I kept hoping it would get better in the 3rd hopefully with a ending with a big Payoff. Nope. I walked out after the ending of the movie scratching my head and saying to myself. Did I watch the same movie these reviewers were saying its a Masterpiece?
Not sure at what point you walked out of the film but Bella eventually rejects Mark Ruffalo's character which hilariously destroys him. It was a little over-long and probably could have used a trim (I'd have to rewatch to determine where) but definitely worth sticking around for. She actually grows into a very intelligent woman. As this reviewer says, it's not preachy, which could explain why you missed the feminist aspects.
I 100% agree with your take on the movie. It absolutely disturbed me the whole way through. I can in no way see how becoming a prostitute is a pro feminist act. Wacko
@@saltyrealism But "becoming a prostitute" wasn't shown to be a "pro feminist" act whatsoever though. That act overall explored how there's not really anything like an "easy way" to make it within society. Sex work is the easiest to showcase as directly exploitative work that someone can do in order to pay the bills. Movie isn't making a moral judgement, it's just showing you "yep this is how it is and it can suck balls".
I thought the same thing. I was not a fan. Also i found it slow and over-indulgent. Genuinely boring and problematic but everyone is raving about it. I feel crazy lol.
The thing is it’s not a woman. It’s a baby controlling a woman’s body. I get that it’s supposed to be a blank slate without all the restrictions that come with being a child, but it comes off as maybe a certain kind of phile’s dream of what an infant would do if it weren’t “encumbered” by laws concerning age and consent. I’m not saying that this was the director’s intent, but with all the criticism of film characters who are portrayed through some other’s “gaze” (ie. manic pixie girl, Uncle Remus, etc.), why does this get a pass? This movie may be well made, but if you don’t happen to believe that every cloth you unravel will reveal some perfect form underneath, the sexually explicit adventures of a baby in a woman’s body is pretty creepy.
the message of the film really went over your head for you to get stuck on this
It's not advocating fetishization. The pacing and order of certain scenes are meant to draw attention to this. We learn that Bella is actually a child just before we get introduced to her introduction to sexuality. This juxtaposition, could be interpreted as a paedophilic gaze if handled poorly, but the context around all of these things is the way that her body is infantilized and her innocence/appetite for the world is fetishized by the men (the assistant and Wedderburn). It is clearly critiqued almost exactly at the same time as the idea is introduced. Therefore, it would be very disingenuous of the film as a whole to dissect it so narrowly. The overarching villain of the movie is the desire of men to conquer and control the wildness of a woman, which is her sexuality. It is simultaneously the object of desire and the ultimate insult, all depending on the way the female is submits herself or not. When Bella eventually becomes a whore, she understands this drive as something that she can exploit to sustain herself, but it brings her no joy because the drive she is subverting is still aimed squarely at destroying her.
So yes, there is plenty of weirdness and fetishization. To say this is somehow the view of the director is even more weird though. You might also think that he supports the creation of dog-geese because they exist in the film as a device to support the thesis.
@@EarlofSedgewick this was the best way to state this analysis, i want to talk like this one day
@@AZVREIGN very kind of you, and appreciated 🙂
@@EarlofSedgewickexcellently said
Im really lost with the interpretation of this film, the female sexual liberation through prostitution is a cliche from a mans perspective. she had no choice, it was her only desparate option but its shown as a powermove. she has skills that she could have used that the movie ignores intentionally in this instance, not even showing concideration.
when she works in the brothel she doesnt learn from the darkside of the job, je is shown to just deal with it and is shown to look happy and satisfied, there is no nuance, there is no option to interpret the twisted scenes as somehow damaging her because she either smiles it off or stoically barges through.
I do not know why Yorgos needs to put a childs brain in these sexual situations while only romanticizing it, he doesnt let any character notice the odd p3d0 relationship she has, and we dont see a negative impact on the abuse she goes through, only some strange forced fake feminist nimpho hunger for "furious jumping".
It is completely unnecessary to involve a childs brain in so many sexual scenes, as if the world for a women to explore is 80% sex, that time is past, redundant message. but sure if we want to show that path, why show her nude so fuckingoften, i cant enjoy a movie with such fenomenal visual detail, if im bombarded by nudity of someone with the overly naive mind of a child. it's not justified.
the movie tries to make the men look weak after being torn appart by Bella's words, but it feels like an excuse to make her get out of abuse without inward retrospection.
visually art, naratively a confession without real showcase of concern for the main character.
My girlfriend took me to see this in theatres and I couldn’t agree more. I was extremely uncomfortable the whole time, It felt like a girl pretending to be mentally handicapped for 2hrs.
i didnt really interpret the sex work as empowering or depowering, it seemed like it was just another experiment that bella wanted to explore to its fullest until she tired of it and found something else. Her experience with sex work was the same as her experience reading and discussing philosophy with new friends or exploring her past life, it fascinated her and so she pursued it.
you're overthinking it. if you're that sensitive in your daily basis, you're screwed. chill.
Not sure how this movie can be called "not preachy", when she is shown to be at her peak when she becomes a lesbian socialist. It's almost laughable how much this movie is trying to appeal to Hollywood politics without actually saying something original. The visuals of the movie are excellent, but the themes of female liberation and empowerment are weak and cliche. "Girl power" is just using sex to get what you want from men - truly groundbreaking stuff.
@@thehunterx93yeah I agree
I just skipped the scenes when they came up; no biggie imo
I think they serve their purpose well
just came from the costume exhibition in london yet I still have to wait another few weeks to watch it over here, beyond excited.
oh my god it was fantastic
I’m so happy I came back to this comment
I’m really, really uncomfortable with the fact that this movie is focused on sex with a child-minded human. That is a hard pass.
Thank you. I feel crazy because everyone is loving it.
Agreed.....it's cringe
I couldnt get myself to like it because of this, people are saying well shes aging rapidly but im not convinced completely
really glad i’m not the only one who felt uncomfortable by this bc i genuinely feel crazy atp that such a small amount of people had a problem w that
that's entirely the point... you're suppose to feel discomfort and disdain for the people taking advantage of her, but as the film unfolds you see that she's effectively in control the whole time.
Soundslike you didn't watch the movie?
Loved this movie. It was just so well done. This might be one of the most “art house” and surrealist movie I’ve seen in a while.
I’m one of the people who got up and walked out. I couldn’t get past the pedo-adjacent aspect of it. Left about 30 minutes in when Godwin gave her away to Max, who had been lusting after her despite knowing she literally had the brain of a baby. Too gross for me.
Yes
💯 !!! It gets even worse in the later parts. In one scene a father screws her in the brothel where she works while his two young sons sit there and take notes „how women work“. 🤮
The more I hear about this movie the more unbelievably hyped I’m getting. Unfortunately I’m probably not gonna get a chance to see it till after Christmas but will certainly be rushing to the week after
Try to see it in a crowded theater. I saw it at the opening ceremony of Lisbon Film Festival last month, full house, and it was a blast.
If you want to fully experience it - go see it with your family
@@edinem1996 Nothing like a Christmas triple feature of Poor Things, The Handmaiden, and Salo with the whole family!
@@AgsmaJustAgsma my theater had this trio that were so obnoxious and loud it took me so many tim4s
It's a horrific piece of trash and I like artsy films. This is an aimless piece of garbage that I wish I could get my $5.50 back.
I didn't think I'd describe a film such as this as a crowd-pleaser but man was my theater eating it up. The was consistent laughter and palpable enjoyment from the audience. I don't think I've ever had this kind of experience with an arthouse film, especially as weird and bonkers and over-the-top as this one. But I guess that's a testament to Lanthimos as a director that he was able to absorb us into this world for the first 20 minutes and all the insanity make sense for the characters inhabiting this world. I loved every frame of this movie and it skyrocketed to my number 1 of 2023
I wish! my theatre was completely dead - I swear me and the person I went with were the only people laughing
I've had a really interesting experience with this movie at the cinema. Many people were laughing and enjoying themselves but there were also a couple of people who walked out of the movie entirely. I've never experienced that in my years of going to the movies so far. Very fascinating.
@@tedros6917maybe they want to watch the movie not hear someone laughing all the time?
It was as faux-complex and as clumsy as Bella Baxter's first steps, as loosely connected and non seamless as Godwin's face and as awkwardly put together as a Frankenstein's Monster. Poor things were the audience who could see through the glitter and could not ignore the cracks. No deep theme forced upon us was ever handled with any depth leading towards any resolve! Halfway it even began to drag narratively leaving only the glossy surface to dwell upon with nothing substantial within. These viewers of FrankenHooker are routinely and completely in agreement on what exactly was wrong with the film which justifies the realization that objections are not simply an individual's subjective ideas being express. They are collective rational & cohesive responses which is everything the film is not.
I get that the movie is pretty but I just cannot get over the idea of a toddler brain being sexually abused over and over and over again
My point exactly ! Most of the movie is about a literal kid in an adults body ,discovering her sexuality by constantly having sex with multiple strangers , and breathly finding out about other aspects of life , like , basic human interaction ,society sadness ,disappointment , forgiveness and stuff , but those are only some quick comments between all the sex and prostitution . I literally couldn't bear myself to eat my burguer until the boat kidnapping thing.
@@lavaot5207 wait you were eating during a yorgos film ? Yeah do not do that lol, its usually very much like this
Yeah fr I don't know why people like this film it's pretty creepy
I literally cannot get over this.
she's not a normal human, nor do any normal rules apply to this world. she has an adult body and a mind that evolves rapidly and the entire point that is staring you in the face is her independence and autonomy. she has an adult brain after her sexual awakening, she's just not familiar with societal norms.
watched this recently and it's a certified bonkers banger. also an interesting film in conjunction to the series The Curse where Emma Stone is losing sense of self in the show while finding a sense of self in this film. love the work that she's doing in two weird realms, Yorgos and Nathan Fielder!!!
Weird, but deeply sexist - She is controlled within the bounds of patriarchy -Dafoe is even called "God". Yuk
Are we not going to mention that she literally a baby in a womans body? I feel like thats a really important part to leave out
do you still think she was mentally a child by the end of the film?
perhaps there was some intended symbolism going on in this abstract movie covering abstract concepts?
Mayhaps it's not meant to be a literal representation of what would happen if you put a infant mind into an adult body?
@@loopholesloopy Yeah, it's not like children that are sexually abused don't eventually become adults no? They all gotta start somewhere, no? WTF is with that argument? When she has her first sexual experiences she can barely string sentences together.
@wintersonnet can you elaborate your comment. Am personally a little confused of what you are referring to in the comment above.
I really appreciate your work Karsten, it is great to have such a thoughtful and well spoken reviewer in the online space because I feel they're hard to come by. You dig a lot deeper than initial reactions or just making memes. Whether or not I agree with your reviews, I always get something out of them and in the years to come, I wouldn't be surprised if you become one of the most essential american voices in current film criticism.
The amount of glaze here is profound
I couldn't get through the movie, since the movie is about the mind of a child in the body of a grown woman and she is exploited sexually by men. which is borderline pedophilia which gave me the ick and I couldn't watch it.
the movie about a babies brain being placed in a grown woman's body, and the brain develops really fast. A brain is just a brain, you treat a baby like a baby because it's helpless and needs help, and it takes ages for that baby to grow up, but place it in a grown woman's body that already knows how to walk and talk and all of that, the brain just needs to get used to it, but the body is already capable, she is treated like an adult by the people she comes in contact with, because she looks like an adult, so because that's the interactions she's getting she's not thinking like a child, she acts childlike with her wonder for the world and she loves to learn, but no one treats her like a child, they don't know she's got reanimated, they just see her as an adult woman.
@@The_Tortoise_and_the_Hareyah what they don’t know is that they’re interacting w a mental child. Yah she’s adapting to her body but her understanding of the world is still that of a child. She literally calls sex “furious jumping”. If I was w someone and they were acting like a kid I’d be like bro wtf r u doing. Please stop. Not “wow how sexy haha”. This movie is an example of why people think Hollywood is full of pedos, and it is.
@@marlin303 well I loved the movie and wish I was as free as her. I thought her way of viewing the world and our societal rules refreshing, because she didn't give a crap.
@@marlin303 Based. I agree 100%.
I am getting this idea that poor things is a secret sequel to Frankenstein. Godwin never says what his fathers name is, but we assume is last name is Baxter as well, however, we do know that Frankenstein's monster did become literate and smart by the end of the novel, so what if someone approached the question of what happened to the monster after the novel. So my theory is after the monster killed his creator, he returned to the life he knew, he became a doctor and did experiments just like his father, and oddly enough we see the same revelation when Bella does the exact same thing, which makes me wonder if our fates are tied to our past. Godwin Baxter is Frankensteins monster.
the books arent even written by the same author so this is by no means an actual sequel. gray's fetish parody of frankenstein could never be close to shelley's original
@@helixxia9320 That is why I said it's a secret sequel. I know it is not written by the same author. By no means does the story ever come out and say it is a sequel to Frankenstein. The tale of Poor Things is so far disconnected from Shelley's Frankenstein that it is its own thing. However, I feel as though breadcrumbs are laid in the story to open my imagination to the possibility that Dr. Baxter is Frankenstein's Monster.
@theclaybeartravels3596 so how does the original frankenstein ends?
@@theclaybeartravels3596does he become smart in the first book?
@annanowak9620 he becomes very smart in the book. Victor dies at the end and the creature mourns his death. The creature tells the Captain that he will burn himself on a funeral pyre. The last thing the Captain sees is the creature on a raft drifting out to sea. So we don't actually see the monsters death at his own hands in the novel. It's implied. Enter Dr. BAXTER in Poor Things. He knows how to reanimate the dead. He looks as though his father took him apart and put him back together a million times. So maybe the creature lived, traveled back to Victor's home, became the new master of the house and continued on with Victor's legacy, just like when Bella returned to Baxters home to continue Baxters legacy, a tragic wheel of fate. Soon Bella will find an experiment that will continue her legacy.
Poor things gave me hope for the film industry. I haven’t seen a movie I actually liked in theatres in a very long time before I saw it. I’m so excited for what is going to come out of it as a film student, for once I am excited where this industry is headed.
Same!! Just got back from it and I was shocked to see the theater so packed! The viewers were cracking up throughout the whole thing and were invested til the end. Made my heart skip a beat
By any chance have you see The Holdovers?
What are some other movies you saw lately and you didn’t like and what are some of your favourites if you don’t mind?
I’m right there with you. This is a film that really seems to take a step forward. For so long the film industry has been stagnant, and will probably continue to be so, but this film being funded, completed and distributed in theaters gives me hope.
@@dimv2140Gummo isn’t a recent movie but it’s always one I recommend
I absolutely adored this film. It’s uniquely a Lanthimos film, but still different from anything else he’s done. Got to see it in a packed theater and there were probably 5-6 walk outs but everyone was buzzing about it after. Can’t wait to see it again!
It was as faux-complex and as clumsy as Bella Baxter's first steps, as loosely connected and non seamless as Godwin's face and as awkwardly put together as a Frankenstein's Monster. Poor things were the audience who could see through the glitter and could not ignore the cracks. No deep theme forced upon us was ever handled with any depth leading towards any resolve! Halfway it even began to drag narratively leaving only the glossy surface to dwell upon with nothing substantial within. These viewers of FrankenHooker are routinely and completely in agreement on what exactly was wrong with the film which justifies the realization that objections are not simply an individual's subjective ideas being express. They are collective rational & cohesive responses which is everything the film is not.
@@wendellwiggins3776haha okay. You're certainly entitled to your opinion!
@@blakehawk Of course but as I stated, I do feel justified by other negative critiques of the film having opinions exactly as mine. I feel that people are blinded by the look & weirdness of it and simply ignore that it's shallow within
@@wendellwiggins3776 I mean, you can feel justified all you want. That’s your subjective interpretation and more power to you. I got quite a lot out of the film and thoroughly enjoyed what it was saying and exploring. If you engage with art in a way that leads you to not like this film, then great, I just don’t see what you get out of going on a diatribe on my positive comment. Like, at the end of the day, who cares? Let people like what they like and type whatever you want on your Letterboxd account.
@@blakehawkCurious to know what you got because most of it seemed contradictory and never resolved much of anything. But I have so problem with it being liked by some. My issue is with it being hailed as some masterpiece
just saw this movie and came back to hear your thoughts. went into this completely blind after my roommate asked me last minute if I’d like to see it tonight after my shift. it took a moment to get comfortable with the movie but by the time it all broke into color we were in it and I was hooked. emma’s performance and the cinematography in this were beyond incredible I don’t think I’ll stop thinking about either for a long time. I hope this film can get the recognition it deserves for the technical aspects and performances. and shoutouts to martha and harry best side characters.
Came to say: flora supremacyyyyyy 💕
i genuinely think this is visually one of my favorite movies ever. went in expecting it to be good but i didn't know HOW good
Almost walked out of the theatre, but was there with someone and have never even thought of walking out a film before, had to see how it would redeem itself. Just the bomb of “fate had brought me a dead body, live infant” God drops about how Bella came to be had me reeling, then the immediate not at all child like masturbation scenes. Next half hour was sub 10 year old grasp of language and what my brain could only interpret as r slur jokes. I was bamboozled. Like I watch and consume disturbing stuff I’m not a prude but I was like physically sick watching. Once I started to settle into the Paris section which felt like she had actually become an adult cognitively, I was thrust back to London where I lived in fear that a incest plot was about to unfold and I was sick again.
Anywho it’s definitely a fantastic made film, but I have never been so poisoned by an early moment in a movie that made me struggle to enjoy the following masterful imagery and world building. I’m sure I’ll watch it again, but feel like I’m going crazy reading all the ‘they clear it up, she is advancing cognitively so quickly’ umm sure but when ruffalo arrives she’s still a toddler level grasp of language when he ‘pinches’ her.
I could tell while watching woman had no hand in the writing, and sure how everyone just shines how great a feminist work this is. Sure she discovers herself and gets a good life in the end but even McCandles is a bad dude. THEY JUST MADE ANOTHER BELLA WHEN SHE WAS GONE, it wasn’t even a one time thing these people are a bunch of Josef Mengeles. like did McCandles stand there while God did the most fucked up thing happen all over again bc God was bored. The main idea of the film I was left with is what Harry tells her on the boat about how “we are a fucked up species”, which when I heard that I was like that’s something fucked up people who are evil tell themselves to feel better about themselves. That line to me shows the philosophy of the film maker because no one helps or protects Bella, all the men take advantage of her over and over even. Just because she dumb luck survived the most heinous events doesn’t mean it’s a happy ending, she needs to get McCandles and Prim away from Margaret Qualley ASAP bc they are both evil and complicit.
i never shook the feeling of child exploitation throughout the whole film. even when she became more "functioning as an adult" because Im not sure how much time has passed or how old she was when she left, but she was still a kid and there is no way that she went from a kid to at the very least a legal adult in the time she was gone. to me this was a very roundabout way to make child porn without making child porn.
@@christopherhaught-cruz970Such a weird take.
Just want to say child like maturation is an interesting term considering most people become securely active before they're 18, so what else would you expect it to be.
Poor Things is like the Bechdel Test sketch in Rick and Morty except if Morty dared to make a better script than the guy in the purging episode.
The film just came out in my country yesterday and I saw the first screening. I can't articulate all the things it made me feel, but by the time the end credits rolled around, I was full on sobbing and whimpering. Beautiful, beautifl movie.
saw this masterpiece twice already, definitely worth the watch!
I felt that the sexual themes and some parts of the dialogue were heavy handed and repetitive, but the score and cinematography were stunning
You were beat over the head with the sexual themes lmao
The fact that they were heavy-handed and repetitive is precisely the point. Bella's character is shown to think about nothing BUT sex at that stage of the movie until she realises there's other ways to enjoy herself.
I KNEW I wasn't the only one who saw a parallel between Lanthymos and Anderson! Also I see the film as, in part, a deconstruction of the "born sexy yesterday" trope. Like, how would this male fantasy play out in "real life?" What I mean is, if we follow logic (as is prioritized in the trope), will that naive, logical-minded super-genius really worship you? Oh, yeah, heavy critique of positivism here, too, which I'm always here for.
I watch this saturday and its been at the top of my list in terms of anticipation all year. Emma stone tends to pick great projects, loved the favorite, i need this film injected into my bloodstream as soon as possible.
i saw this on october and honestly the more i think about it (and i thought about it a lot) the more it gets better. its somehow the funniest movie i've seen all year, while also being very deep on its themes, and emma stone has my favorite performance of the year (and its a carrer best, tbh). she's so goofy and lovable, but also so weird and vulnerable; she portrays bella's evolution throghout the movie in a very special way, and i cant think of anyone who could have done a better job than her, considering her chops to physical acting
i do think however that the movie overstays his welcome a little bit and gets a bit tiring by the end. i also think its a very creative and abstract premise that focus too much on sexuality and gender, and sometimes it looks like its going to develop another side and it just abandons it completely. i know its the point of the movie, but at some point the message was so reinforced that it started to sound like yorgos was too much self-aware as being a man to the extent that it was starting to look not honest at all, like he was saying "uh hey girls yeah sorry for being a man" and not really reflecting about it anymore
maybe i just need a rewatch tho - and i really want it soon
“Willem Dafriend” lol
I’m worried about watching this movie because of the Born Sexy Yesterday movie trope. It’s basically a sexually mature woman who is infantilized or foreign to her environment. This trope makes me so uncomfortable, and I wonder: Does this movie lean into that too much?
During the first half of the film, she acts extremely immature since she has a young mental age (e.g., inability to form proper sentences). I felt it was very weird that there are many sex scenes during this stage of her development. While I don't think the movie tries to objectify her much, and tries to empower her more over the course of the movie, I do think it fits into this trope at least somewhat. I would discuss more but don't want to spoil.
I don’t think so - I think the film directly questions why the men in her life find her infantness sexy and casts judgement upon them/makes them look foolish because of it.
@@aemmathis do you think that’s something that can be communicated without a sex scene between said man and her in her infantile state?
@@aemmathislegit
In a lot of ways I’m the ideal audience member for this film. I’m a film student who loves surrealist, groundbreaking films that take on feminist themes. I’m also a huge fan of Yorgos. Undoubtedly I had very high expectations going into this film and I have to say I was really disappointed. It took me so long to mourn the fact that I didn’t love this movie as much as I wanted to. I think the sex scenes took me completely out of it. They were Hollywood, exploitative sex scenes that felt so out of place. What about weird, surreal sex scenes a la Akerman? The scene where she discovers that children are dying was so goofy and I don’t think intentionally. I have no clue where this film lands at the end.
“as it´s literally kind of about a woman kind of discovering the world for the first time and what it means to exist as a woman in the world“ yeah, that´s exactly why I thought it was shockingly disappointing when it came to the plot. yorgos takes that premise and wraps it up with the moral “if a woman existed without preconceived notions about the world or her role in it she would *always* want to have sex with every man who touches her without her consent (imagine a child brain. it would get annoyed if it didn´t want to „“jump“ as bella calls it“ anymore and vocalize that (unless it was terrified because it was being sexually abused). she would not ponder injustice in the world and have an existential crisis about it or deep feelings and fears about it that exceed one night (and what? five minutes of the film max?). she would not have to (*especially as a sexually liberated woman*) have to face exceeding amounts of sexual harassment and assault, only judgement (yorgos was like “oh wait, I know what the only problem women face is! It´s when you guys get slut-shamed. let me put that in there as the main sexism). she would also not menstruate, that´s for the weak bitches that don´t want to have sex every hour of every day (they´re not feminist enought). and she would not have to worry about contraception and everything that goes along with that (unwanted pregnancies! which all of a sudden become part of the plot when it serves yorgos to show the one reaaally bad man and how he wants to impregnate bella against her will, but contraception (once again along with sexual assault) is not a topic at ALL when it comes to sex work. cause why would any of those have to do with each other, nah, sex workers don´t have to deal with any of that, they actually are having the time of their lives 24/7 (that is so evidently the perspective of a person who has never spoken to a single sex worker or looked into the conditions and realities of it). Since those things don´t serve to shock people as much as naked emma stone does yorgos just couldn´t in any way have them in the film. and the peak state of this woman with nooo preconceived ideas about the world and her (gender) role in it would be living in a mansion, drinking a martini, never having thought about the state of the world or the injustice in it again and having a girl there as a servant who has also had her brain exchanged against her will! wow, bella baxter is such an icon, so cool, so unbothered, so unbiased because she has her child brain and no real issues exist, there´s only pleasure and this one bad man who is now a goat, feminism lives to see another day awee. no.
I also think it´s so typical to have one particularly “bad man“ sort character, to show that “yes, there are really bad men. look at him, he´s the epitome of a terrible man and I´m going to make that incredibly obvious and on the nose and then have him get his revenge to show that I am a better man and there are just some terrible men (exceptions), it´s not a systematic problem or anything, it´s just this one guy who wants to have her clit removed for shock value for the audience. I also feel that almost eeeeverything yorgos does in this movie he does for shock value, which makes the film so much weaker, in my opionion. Everyone in the comments is going „I´d never seen anything like it, it was so crazy, so niche and alernatively cool“ yeah, it aimed to shock and not actually develop the story well, in my opinion. If you choose shocking your audience over everything else….that´s so the easy way out??
At the beginning of the film I was (number one really excited an unbiased btw) really enjoying the screenplay and the actors, but that scene on/off the boat AFTER she has her breakdown about the conditions that poor people live in and the injustice in the world (which I thought was great and was really going somewhere, to discuss how one could even be an idealist in a world like this (so relevant rn!) and how children process things like that) was where the film started to go reeeeally downhill for me. the women I know think so much about the fucked up state of the world and are so empathetic and heartbroken and desperate to change things and bright and frustrated and existential and always thinking about this kind of stuff. about how we can better the world. and bella just goes “oh yeah, I did feel sad there for a sec, but I´ve decided it´s actually all good and I can make small-scale change (which I will not, in this film, I will just have a lot of sex and not menstruate or have to deal with contraceptions or pregnancies or abortions or sexual assault tehe) and I´m super idealistic even though I was just shown breaking tf down but toodles and off to paris!“. what a male view of female emancipation and liberation and what a disservice to women everywhere, oof, tone-deaf and ignorant and…written by a man at best.
It´s also hilarious to see people who hated barbie for its pink and plastic surface, when they didn´t understand half the metaphors and little references and moments in it that were such brilliant points by greta gerwig, love this for it´s shocking, unconventional, “niche“, “you just wouldn´t get it cause you´re not a film bro“ surface, when below that aesthetically enticing and much less internalized-misogyny-awakening surface „“poor things“ is a very well written and decorated incredibly basic second-wave-feminism male fantasy of female liberation. how very ironic.
And how sad to have your film end up relying on things like set design, costumes etc. to lift it up when the plot fails so badly. I wanna emphasize that I was so ready to love this film, truly. and I WISH a film about women and freedom was doing this well, but it´s so emblematic of how the (film) world rewards work, that this film, that a man wrote and directed and edited, about women´s role in society and their possible liberation“ is doing SO much better than work by *women* on this, because it just LOOKS more film bro-ey and feminist because it´s less pink.
well said
WOW BANGER OF A COMMENT! Couldn’t agree more! Especially the point about Barbie you made also irritated me!
Barbie was „man-hating“ but this shit is a „masterpiece“? You got to be kidding me! I don’t say Barbie was a masterpiece either, but it certainly got women across a lot better. There you can see that films that center a man’s perspective are somehow considered better than films from a female perspective.
At least Barbie showed that women flock to cinemas in droves when there actually is a film made for US, not a pseudo liberating movie that only thinly veils the male fantasy of abusing women and they even like it. Male power fantasy.
Fantastic comment. You said everything I was thinking after watching this.
I walked out of the movie. I’m not really a fan of watching a mentally ill girl get taken advantage of. Idk if seen enough of it in real life that it’s not some fantasy it’s just sick. Sick someone would even write a story like that
You do know that just because someone includes a negative action in a film doesn't mean they want to preform or endorse that action in real life right? The point of the film was that these people where cruel, the movie is called POOR THINGS not HAPPPY THINGS.
Wow it's almost as if the movie was trying to say something about it!!
if thats what you got from my comment youre a sick individual @@loopholesloopy
you didn t understand nothin about the movie wth😂😂😂
@@jamesjones5023 I assume you just don't like watching movies that covers serious topics. Obliviously the narrative is a bit weird and sickening, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone would be uncomfortable watching it, just how someone would not be comfortable watching murder or seeing blood within a film, so I understand
I agree that the execution and actors are flawless. I guess my issue is with the source material (that I haven't read), or whomever wrote the script. It's a child having sex for two hours. The cruelty of Victoria could have been explored but isn't. Which we discover very late. Does it explain why she behaves like so much of a sociopath? Exploring the world is largely equated with fucking. What bothers me is that all the content on RUclips talks about half of the movie and ignores the rest, which is a child, then a teenager fucking. There are very few moments of wonder about the world (idk, like the sun rising, sea water being salty, a storm, snow...), the screen time is literally mostly about fucking.
So, ultimately, I think it's a terrible book / story. The movie felt like pimping the hell out of some shitty ass minivan: no matter what you do, your source material is still shit.
Loved it! It is a MENTAL masterpiece. They’re debating Barbie vs Oppenheimer for an Oscar. This is streets ahead of either of those movies. Art.
Random for sure, but for anyone who hasn't seen Speak No Evil (2022), watch it and go in blind
Few films have made me angrier than that one. I know that's (partially) the point, but Jesus Christ I wanted to scream at the protagonists so fucking loudly.
I can't stop thinking about this movie and I don't want to. It shot its way to my top five just like that. It managed to be delightful even in its darkest, most questionable, goriest, saddest moments. You just want to eat it up and then have it for dessert. I love when you're so captivated the whole time that then you emerge from the theater like you're still in the dream - Pan's Labyrinth did that for me and so did Poor Things.
Terrific review. Seeing it for the first time I left the theater speechless. Like you I plan to see it more than once.
*terrible
I took my friend to see this movie with me and it made me feel like Travis in taxi driver when he takes Betsy to the porno theater
Sigh.. sounds like born sexy yesterday trope
Yup! The main character was a pregnant woman who died and the doctor puts the babies brain inside her body to ‘save’ the baby, then it’s a bunch of men taking advantage of a child in a woman’s body, and they’re calling it a feminist masterpiece, I don’t like this movie
@@icarisk7013 yeah, same it is really creepy
@@icarisk7013I’m about to watch the movie but I think I’m def gonna feel the same way
It’s not the same it’s similar but also very different
Bella is not narratively a tool
Other people objectify her but the story itself doesn’t
She’s not really good at anything at first she changes and grows
The main character is not the man who falls in love with her and the man who falls in love with her is in no way her mentor
All the people who end up using her as a tool end up miserable or dead
3 days til I see this in a theater all by myself. I cannot fucking wait
definitely my favorite movie of the year!!
This sounds like a rather decent flick. It looks visually amazing as well
Definitely not decent. It’s magnificent.
Thank you for letting me in on his correct pronunciation.
I didnt want willam to be my foe even in spiderman.
this movie is truly something special. it is my favorite of the year.
unquestionably the movie of the year
The Academy didn't agree but in ten years this will be the one people will still be watching, arguing over and not least laughing with.
I've got to rewatch this one, because as much as I found it to be an easy-going experience, in terms of appreciating the ride and understanding everything, and as much as it was gorgeous to look at, I was left rather disappointed at how at the end the message seemed to be too spelt out for you, it was also very one-note, repetitive, and quite simplistic as well, and (at least to my eyes) not so challenging, as I didn't think it provoked any thought, it just told me things I knew were wrong and should not happen; basically a preaching to the choir...
Agreed!!
she's a lot more physically attractive than her counterpart which gives it uber creepy vibes. she looks a lot younger than him too, even if she isn't.
Well, she is more than twenty years younger than Marc Ruffalo
She is much younger lol
idk if you’ve seen it by now, but those creepy vibes are intentional
This is another film that won't get a wide release in the UK until next year, but I've wanted to watch it since that first trailer. This video makes me even more excited to see it.
Thanks for this, I'm really excited to see it now. Looks a bit like City of Lost Children which is one of my favourite films.
One of the reasons why Lanthimos' films fail to win me over, is because they rarely make me feel something. The tries to dazzle with overt visuals & ornamental spectacle, which are only intriguing for the first 30 mins , but never lets me feel any real emotion. I find his films to be artistic exercises, but intellectually incomplete, and emotionally absent. And Poor Things seems to me the perfect example of this. Maybe if I also had the brain of a child who was blind to pedophilia and plot substance then I may have liked it too!
I just watched it today and I really did not know what I was getting into. This film was way too intense and it did not hold any punches and I came out like “what the hell did I just watch?” But in a good way.
I love watching your videos because you can clearly articulate how I felt about most movies, and I agree with you 100% on Poor Things. I don't think it will, but I would be very happy to see it win Best Picture.
The vomit scene was inspired by the Eric Andre and Lauren Conrad interview
yesss, 7 minutes of Karsten raving about new Lanthimos, that makes me very happy, can't wait to see it! (and form my own opinion)
He seems to be inspired by Jeunet and Caro (Delicatessen, Amelie etc.) They again claimed to be inspired by Terry Gilliam (especially his timeless masterpiece Brazil).
If you guys enjoy this movie you should give the book a shot. It’s tedious at times but the paratexual elements deepen the themes of the story. There is a frame story missing from movie that is pretty crucial which was a bummer for me personally.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK THAT AREN’T IN THE FILM IF YOU’RE CURIOUS:
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Bella’s story isn’t real. She is a fiction written by McCandless who is now married to Bella / Victoria. Victoria asks for the book to be unpublished because it is fiction and it would take away from her life.
The fictional editor in the frame story then instead of respecting her wishes tries to find all the evidence he can to PROVE she is Bella and she lied about it being false.
Because why would a man believe a woman when she tries to tell her story and truth.
if that all sounds intriguing to you give the book a shot.
Bella goes some distance with her own self developing.
In the beginning, when she sees another living being, like that frog, shes immediately like "kill it!". And slowly goes all the way to break down when she sees children suffering in Alexandria.
Best. Cinematography. I’ve seen in a long time. Probably since a Kubric film.
Some similarities to his Clockwork Orange - subversive and visually dazzling.
The movie is incredibly gorgeous. I left the movie theater. Happily pleased with the ending and its cinematography, its conceptual production, its plot, the acting, and costume designing is a beautiful pop surreal gift that was given to the world. I wish there were a lot more films like this that had a beautiful twist. I am 100% re-watching it.
I am usually driven away by media that deliberately tries to gross me out, so the fact that I was glued to the screen while watching really shows how good this movie was. The audience around me had mostly the same reaction. You could hear the crowd ebb and flow between uncomfortable awkwardness, to empathy, to honest laughter and back again. Every time I started thinking "okay this scene is too much" it would go in another direction and lead to something interesting or funny.
I think the reason it works so well is that the gross out stuff is portrayed in such a frank way. The brothel montage shows all these scenarios and fetishes that most film makers would play for shock and mockery, but yorgos shows them with empathy and understanding. And that lens makes all the difference.
Poor Things is "challenging" to say the least. As a woman, this film made me feel like going through the most nightmarish odyssey possible, but through the eyes of someone so innocently enthusiastic. I admire Bella for always taking the wheel, but still can't help and feel like she's being taken advantage of the whole way. It's hard to feel liberated about the ending for me, as a lot of the trappings in Bella's life is still present despite her being free off it. I probably relate most to Harry's character who only see the world wrapped in cynicism. Still, at least Bella got to choose her own path.
I'm a woman and I loved it, I wish so bad that I could be more like the character of Bella. I loved this movie, it made me feel very happy.
Cinematography, hairstyles and acting are great. The plot is sick. Disgusting. It normalizes pedophelia. Sex should be sublime. This movie makes sex an abomination. I hated it.
I guess the movie was a success!
@@triton62674no. Demonic
Yes, sex SHOULD be sublime. But. SO rare to find someone who thinks so.
It doesn't normalise anything bro. We're not sheep. We're not gonna watch a movie or tv show that sympathises with a really bad person (Walter White from breaking bad for example) and have the takeaway that being "maybe making drugs isn't so bad". Movies should be able to deal with serious topics, because at the end of the day, it's purely fiction.
Dafoe is one of the greats. Every role he takes is so unconventionally likable. A noble cornerstone to the plot, again and again. Loved this film
my girlfriend whose autistic was crying in the first fifteen minutes, feeling like the bella character was so deeply an allegory for neurodivergent people, that is was offensive in its use of her character traits as a gag. But as the film went on, and the objective view of Bella shifted to Subjective, the story became more empathetic for autistic individuals and how the world forces conformity on neurodivergent individuals (something the film directly references with the constant lines about polite society). Even so, she is unsure of whether she loved or hated it, and whether it was a step in the right direction for neurodivergent representation or a step backward.
I'm interested if any other viewers on the spectrum had an adverse reaction to the film
One of the things I loved the most about the film is how it forces the viewer into Bella’s perspective. Narratively you’re meant to see her from the outside (from the point of view of Max Mccandles, most notably), but everything about the framing and the montage, the music, the use of black&white vs colour-literally every cinematic tool is used to put you in Bella’s shoes, so that even though you understand why the other characters behave the way they do, you automatically sympathize with her point of view. Her actions are perfect logical, whereas everyone else is being absurd. Whether this makes for good neurodivergent representation ( or whether it’s moving in a “good” direction) is kind of missing the point. I read it very much as being addressed at neurotypical people, because of, as you pointed out, the move from objective (Bella is weird and alien) to subjective (her actions and logic make total sense, actually, and it’s everyone else who’s being weird) point of view. The movie tricks the viewer into living her experiences as perfectly normal, given her circumstances. This is something that’s very typical of Victorian satire, too: appeal to a sense of propriety and normalcy while ruthlessly destabilizing all those very rigid norms into absurdity.
And throughout, my main litmus test for judging things like representation is A) to what extent is the character not unidimensional (and I think we can all agree that Bella Baxter is nothing if not a very complex and multifaceted character), and B) is it kind?
I think the movie is very kind, especially towards Bella, but also towards other disabled or marginalized characters-God, for example, or the prostitutes. They’re all deeply weird and deeply complicated people whom the film makes you love just as deeply, mostly because they, in all their complexity, are also ultimately kind characters. Even at the beginning of the film, when Bella is presented in all her awkward, clumsy outside-ness, the score I think did an incredible amount of heavy lifting in building compassion and love for her. Despite the black and white and her inability to express herself, it was the film’s way of saying “look, isn’t she lovely? See her in a kind light, please.”
Is it good autistic representation? To me it was, but despite being neurodivergent myself I always hesitate to read media in that kind of totalizing way. I think the film does a good job of being about an individual. I also think it’s important not to forget that the film is about a lot of things on top potentially of neurodiversity: including the very nature of science and objectivity as well as sex work, socialism in general, etc. I think the film is fundamentally about kindness, and kindness + complexity will always be, in my opinion, the best recipe for representation of any character, whether marginalized or not.
Another thing I would like to add, in afterthought:
I think it’s also important to understand the film’s humour as being satirical, in the sense that you’re meant to laugh at all the neurotypical characters rather than at Bella, most of the time. I get why your girlfriend reacted the way she did-of her experience makes her relate on such an immediate and intense way to Bella as a character, especially in the beginning, then it gets hard to pay attention to what the film is doing on a structural level. But even in the beginning I personally was laughing at Max McCandles getting hit in the face by a “pretty retard” rather than at the “pretty retard” for hitting him in the face. And again, this is a kind of satire that is *very* Victorian in how it pushes “proper” behaviours and morals to their logical extremes, therefore pointing out how absurd they really are. The humour at the beginning is meant to make the (assumed) neurotypical viewer deeply uncomfortable because of how matter-of-factly it presents socially unacceptable behaviours, sex, nudity and gore: it is meant to destabilize, before it can normalize Bella’s behaviour. For the rest of the film, you’re laughing at the gap in between how weird everyone suddenly seems, and how normal Bella is in contrast. But if your girlfriends experience is that the world is a deeply unkind place for neurodivergent individuals-which it is-then it makes sense that she would read the humour at the beginning as being unkind as well, and directed at Bella as a character. I read it as more situational-the gap in between Victorian rigidity and the total Id of a child in an adult’s body, which then develops into social commentary and criticism. I like how much the film mobilizes compassion as opposed to empathy: even though you’re laughing at everyone else, you implicitly understand both why Bella acts the way she does, and why everyone else is so thrown for a loop. That, mostly, is what I mean by kindness. The film goes to great lengths not simply to make you feel the way she does, but to understand her logic and therefore point of view. The world must accommodate her just as much as she must accommodate others-unless they’re sadistic husbands, in which case she may transplant their brains into goats.
@@petrab.7780 thank you for taking the time to respond in such an eloquent and thought provoking way. It was a pleasure to read your ideas on the film
As a neurodivergent woman, this movie missed the mark for me. The beginning felt like the same kind of insidious sexualisation I grew up with, being taken advantage of because I was different and couldn’t tell that sexual activity with an older person was wrong.
Women in the spectrum often get sexually abused, because they can’t always defend themselves. This shit show of a movie even advertised abusing mentally impaired women!
My son is on the spectrum and he knows that it is wrong to touch children.
So well done describing Poor Things. No other critic I've seen, and it's now 9, captured the film in all its aspects as well as did you. One point in support of your appreciation of the cinematographer: in a rather long interview with him he described the many different lens and even broader array of different film stocks that went into this film. It's not about watching through one or a few lenses. The lens and many film stocks were chosen to achive an ambiance for this or that scene, yes, scene. We feel the transition but cannot call out the transition.
This video made me head to the theater yesterday and watch this movie. I am so glad I did. I haven't loved a movie this much in so long, god it was so fucking good. Words cannot describe.
Did I miss the timeline in the movie? Like what was the timetable between God finding Virginia and specifically when Ruffalo coaxes Bella to go off with him? That might be an issue I coulda have with the story if the timeline is not wide enough.
Happy holidays everyone!
I watched the movie today. Not sure what my opinion is yet. I have to think more about it, but there's something that has kept me thinking and it's the fact of the amount of sex scenes. I didn't quite understand why it was so important to show the amount the director decided to show. Could anyone explain why does sex has to play such a big role in this movie? what's the meaning of it? So far I have a feeling that maybe it was too much and in some parts maybe it wasn't needed.
i guess the short answer is that there's so much sex because its about sex. its not only there just to add some allure to scenes like in a lot of movies, its just About Sex, and plenty of other things but that's one of the main things.
the longer answer is I think an accurate and helpful way to look at the sexual aspects of the movie is to think of how they're so closely related to the societal and existential aspects of the story, like the anxieties of adults who have grown around and into schools of thought that protect them from the harshest parts of life, like the cynical assistant of the female writer on the cruise, or Doctor Godwin. when Bella masturbates for the first time, she says something along the lines of "Bella learn how to make self happy". its a popular way for many people and many schools of thought to conceptualize masturbation (idk to what extent i agree but it makes sense) and because the sex is so frequent and consistently present throughout the movie, especially in Bella and her journey, it relates sexual autonomy directly to the parts about physical, mental, spiritual, social autonomy and so on. its about both the sexual and social aspects of sex work, like when the owner of the brothel shows Bella her granddaughter and talks about having to prioritize across money, enjoyment, dignity and intimacy to take care of you and yours.
a part i loved was how when Bella and Duncan are first shown having sex, the soundtrack is this loud, blaring, exuberant, celebratory but also really chaotic orchestral thing. later in the movie, when Bella becomes a prostitute and has her first client, its dead silent, purely a transaction. but over time she starts trying to exercise her autonomy and express herself despite her situation. she cracks jokes, they prance around or draw (i think there was drawing? you get the point) and as the emotional and expressive depth of sex and the enjoyment of it starts coming back, the music comes back too.
long comment and all but i really love this movie and i hope those parts of it click for you too
@@ploue589See but what you think is great about the movie is exactly what people don’t like. My girlfriend took me to this movie and I had no idea what the name even was until I showed up. I like to think that I understand completely what the movie was trying to tell me and I didn’t think it was done well. Because you have to have this whole mental framework and look for these double meanings when you watch it. for instance the first sex scene you mentioned in comparison to the transactional one was something I noticed as well but I thought it was very obviously intentional and because of that not good, no nuance. Like the video said it felt very stiff so everything happening was very “in your face”. for example, the title cards were beautiful, but thats it, they had no other purpose in the movie. alot of great directors will never waste a second unless it means something to the movie. And because of those type of things you could really tell the movie was trying to be great instead of just knowing its great. a good story is good on its own, it shouldn’t need 3 different lenses and colour shades. Because if you were to take the movie seriously from the start you would have to be ok with a babies brain in an adult woman. that took me out right away and to then have that woman be forced into the sex trade by poverty while being mentally handicapped means that you have to look at the movie knowing its not real and being ok with it. which is perfect if your mind is already not in the movie because your constantly looking for double meanings and telling yourself “oh that was done well”. instead of actually being in the present moment. I really did try to give this movie a chance because my girlfriend seemed excited about it. And honestly I don’t think it was awful, it was nice to look at at times. but a good story will show you values and make you enjoy it without noticing. it will not make you look at uncomfortable things in order to “force”you to look for the deeper meaning. I think the main problem is people think that thats what thinking deep actually is. when thinking deep isn’t something you control, its something that happens when your faced with extreme external circumstances. and good art/movies will make you do that effortlessly.
Saw this at an early screening last weekend. LOVED it
Never realized a movie with Gwen Stacy, Hulk and Green Goblin could be so weird. Life is full of surprises.
At first, I was a bit apprehensive about the visual effects. I originally thought that the fakeness of the sky made the movie look like Fortnite, but then as I kept watching, I saw it was more akin to an old oil painting with those wild, sweeping and colorful skies. This film is beautiful.
lol I thought it looked like real life world of warcraft which I was very happy about because I've always wanted to see what it'd look like in real life
@@The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare it was unusual to see for sure!
I just saw the first 90 minutes of this movie, when I walked out. I had had enough of the brutal sex in the bordello and the gallons of blood used in the operating room. Maybe there is a deep meaning in the movie, which I missed, but when a movie makes me so uncomfortable, who cares?
Anyone agree with me?
I keep hearing Frankenstein. The thing with Shelly’s Monster is that he is a monster and remains a monster thru the story. In Poor Things she changes, grows and becomes a whole different creature. It’s a truly remarkable film with great acting.
I couldn’t agree more! I love when a movie stays with me long after I see it. That’s why I’m on YT watching all of the commentary I can find about it. I loved this movie.
Too much sex. At MINIMUM, if you remove 50% of the explicit sex scenes you can still get the message across. Like if they had started kissing and cut to during pillow talk. As a woman, this is how I felt about it.
Kind of defeats the purpose of defending sexual liberation when ur over sexualizing a child-like grown woman. Hollywood needs to get away from pedophilia
Is this movie not a peudos dream? This movie encourages the abuse of the mentally handicapped and children. It's a pretty sick premise.
just because something is being portrayed on screen doesn’t mean the movie approves of what’s happening
No it doesn't lol. Have you even seen the film?
@@MadameCorgi no. The reviews I read and was given by friends all said it. It's a woman with a brain of a baby who has sex with a bunch of men. It brings up questions of consent and abuse of people who are mentally handicapped.
The problem I had with this movie is there a good number of scene are painfully bizarre and annoying to get through. But basically the second half of the movie while being heavy on the sex is very thoughtful and thought provoking. The overall look and filming of the movie is almost magical. But god is most of the first half of the movie hard to watch. I would say while this isn't a movie for everyone, this is a movie real ones.
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the new Chicken Run film. Personally, I was very disappointed with it's weak storyline and even most of the comedy fell flat.
i couldnt even tell you why but the fish eye shots just work so well everytime
I just watched Saltburn with my Mum. To say a few scenes made it an awkward experience would be an understatement. Maybe I won’t watch this one with her 😂
I did, broski, and it wasn't a good idea 😢.
I hope you didn’t do it.
I feel like this movie got better as it went on. I was really struggling with the beginning of this movie… everything is so weird and emma stone’s performance as the more childlike version of bella is really bizarre. But from moment she runs away, the movie keeps revealing more and more depth and I ended up loving it
I was worried this would be another “born yesterday” fantasy, but your review seems promising. I can’t help but be a little skeptical when male, artsy directors try to speak on female experiences, granted, I’m not that familiar with this director.
You should be skeptical. Unfortunately you shouldn’t trust a male review. Many women reviewers are very disappointed in this film and it’s view of sexual liberation. It has a very male view of it, showing a woman with the mind of a baby being railed and learning that she loves sex through event that would traumatize an actual woman. Obviously I don’t want to generalize, but if I see a lot of women saying this isn’t a feminist film and that is is actually disgusting, then I’m going to believe them.
Are you also skeptic when female directors try to speak on male experiences are is it just that good old "sexism is actually A-ok when it's backwards" shtick that is all the rage these days? Because I'd hate to be ghe one to break it to you but some people have been gifted with that magical thing that allows you to put yourself in other people's shoes. I think it's called emp-something
@@yt.byliamI understand the skepticism but I feel like you should watch it yourself if you want a proper view of what the movie is. I can assume there’s some awkward stuff in it but i also think there is something to it.
@@antlerbraum2881 trust me, I was very very very excited for this film and a part of me rlly wants it to not be what I think it is. However, I also have a thing of getting queasy during instances of sexual violence, which I heard is depicted in the film, however I could be wrong.
@@MJGianesello I never said that men shouldn’t tell women’s stories, I said that Lanthimos, McNamara, and Alisdair Gray have the wrong view of feminism. I think they should have truly educated themselves a bit more and gotten women’s EXPERIENCE in their writing. I’ve seen many women mention how they were disappointed that there wasn’t even one mention of menstrual blood, a crucial part of the experience of cis women. If a woman wrote a film about toxic masculinity or the loneliness of men, but had input from men she knew and truly educated herself on the experience, I wouldn’t mind. If you’re going to empathize with a community, actually learn about the community from people in it. Even as a man, I make sure to clarify that I could be wrong about this movie, because there are probably women who found it liberating.
I just personally find the idea of a woman with the mind of a toddler being taken advtange of and sexualized, only to come to love sex, a little fucked up and inaccurate from a lot of the women’s experiences I’ve heard.
I did not expect to like this film as much as I did, but in fact, I absolutely LOVED it! So many hilarious moments (that dance scene!) and the visual images... the fantasy versions of familiar cities and the skies were a work of art. Also, the serious message was there and as you said - without the preachiness! I saw similarities with Barbie - female character constructed and brought to life explores the world. Both dealt with feminism but Barbie felt too preachy (the monologues - ugh!) and it had a distinct men v. women vibe with the Barbie/Ken war, whereas Bella's conflict is primarily with the societal norms imposed on women. Poor Things was visually superior and the acting far surpassed Barbie. Definitely one of my faves for snagging a best picture Oscar.
It reminds me of “City of the Lost children”
Top 10 worst films to watch with your dad
Gods burp always tripped me out lol I loved this movie
Did a double whammy of watching (and loving) The Favourite, then shortly thereafter seeing (and loving) this, without realizing they had the same director...
I don't watch movies so much. I go to the theatre instead. This fall I saw an incredible staging of Strindbergs "A Dream Play" and I found Poor Things life affirming in much the same way I found that one. The interest for what it means to be human, the poetry of a lived life, for this strange depiction of the world and its inhabitants... I have to assume that the original novel is at least in part based on A Dream Play - the notion that we should feel sorry for the humans as we bumble through life in all our delight and misery is a re-occurring phrase very much mirrored by the way the title "Poor Things" frame the movie.
So many thoughts. Absolutely wonderous movie.
This woman is coming into her own, and of course, the male director makes her maturity exclusively about sex. I'm not surprised this male reviewer found the movie "deep'
Yep, I very much lamented the male gaze in this movie.
Exclusively about sex? Are we just going to ignore the themes of exploring and deconstructing polite society, socialism, the limits that women are given such as education in many countries/fields, and Bella’s unwavering choices on many topics besides sex? I’m not sure why this topic is latched onto so much when clearly there is much more to the film that supports its socialist feminism themes.
@@gabewhite9182 These people think everything at surface level, I don't think there's any point explaining the themes to them. If you asked them to write an essay about it all they could point out is what colours and shapes appeared in the film.
@@ravedeath7690yeah because at least 5 unnecessary sex scenes are surely „deep“. 🤮
took my boyfriend and our mutual friend to see this, all of us with no idea of what it was about. all we talked about afterwards was how incredible it was. one of my favorites for sure