‘Poor Things’ Paints a Rich Story

It’s been a long time since I walked out of a movie theater and thought, “That was one of the best films I have ever seen.”

I did just that after viewing “Poor Things.”

Yorgos Lanthimos and the cast have set the bar incredibly high for all feature films in 2024. Though it was released in December, I truly believe Poor Things sets the tone for cinematic releases this year. The film is incredibly artistic, from the colorful, whimsical set design to the emotional soundtrack, and tells an incredible story of a young woman’s journey as she discovers the world and herself.

Content warning: Spoilers follow below, and the movie includes brief mentions of suicide, child abuse, and heavy sexual content.

The film begins with a cold opening: a stunning, solemn scene of a woman jumping off a bridge. It views like a moving painting on the screen, with her royal blue dress billowing in the wind against a watercolor-like ocean beneath her. The film then moves into black and white, following Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), whose face is grotesquely scarred, and a beautiful woman named Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) who seems incredibly childlike.

Dr. Baxter’s medical student Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) sees Bella and becomes enamored with her. The doctor, whom Bella refers to simply as “God” throughout the film, tells Max to follow Bella and track her intellectual progress. Max soon discovers that Bella is not mentally impaired but is the woman whom the audience saw jump from the bridge in the beginning: Dr. Baxter has reanimated her by replacing her brain with the brain of the infant she was pregnant with.

After Bella’s intelligence quickly develops, the doctor approves that Max take Bella’s hand in marriage. But, then… she experiences a sexual awakening after engaging in self-pleasure. The lawyer overseeing the marital process, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), also becomes captivated by her and convinces Bella to run away to Lisbon with him.

The rest of the film turns from black-and-white to vibrant colors as it follows Bella as she discovers autonomy and philosophy from fun, quirky side characters throughout her travels with the lawyer. Eventually he becomes distraught when Bella does not reciprocate his feelings for him and instead begins working at a brothel to gain her own financial independence.

There are many explicit scenes of Bella’s time spent working at the brothel, yet it all remains relevant to her journey of self-discovery. Eventually, Duncan tries to ruin her wedding with Max at the end.

I’ll leave the rest for you to watch while I rave more about the artistic side of the film. The setting is unlike anything I’ve seen in recent films. It was colorful, and vibrant, and everything looks so much like a painting that at times I couldn’t tell if it was a practical effect or if the filmmakers had painted the sky.

Bella’s room at Dr. Baxter’s home has these gorgeous silk walls that have different scenes sewn into them, and her costumes are beautifully tailored to look like an exaggerated, unique version of Victorian-era clothing. Also, a lot of the film is told from Bella’s perspective, and the crew utilized an interesting lens effect, almost like a “fisheye” to capture how her view of the world differs from others’.

All in all, I give this film five out of five “bells” and recommend it as a “must-see” in theaters this year.