Emma Stone is an actress that has continued to challenge herself time and time again with roles that we’d never expect her to take on. Originally beginning her career in a teen comedy, she’s managed to really escape pigeonholing by exploring new and interesting roles. Bella Baxter is probably one of the best performances of her career, one even better than her turn in “Birdman.” As Bella, Stone is remarkable in the way she evolves, and develops and grows in to something that we never quite recognize when the film has ended. Although “Poor Things” will get so many interpretations, I pegged Yorgos Lanthimos’ film primarily as a statement about the illusion of bodily autonomy.
Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist named God, a young woman named Bella Baxter who was revived with the brain of a baby, runs off with a seductive lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times and the control of her master, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation as well as sexual freedom.
Although Bella Baxter’s journey is about seeking bodily autonomy, claiming it, and then growing from it, her big revelation is that bodily autonomy doesn’t exist. It’s a façade in where we’re all constantly beholden to urges and lusts and hungers that we can’t really control. Baxter uses sex as a means of garnering power over her own body and then learns that sex can also be used as a method of control. Once that startling revelation looms over her, the idea of sex isn’t so appealing, anymore. Bella is a victim of her own sexual appetite from the very beginning even indulging in a scene that will likely be mentioned for many years.
Let’s just say it involves her genitals and various pieces of fruit. In either case, Yorgos Lanthimos leans very heavily in to the themes about the god complex and seeking a life without the means of being under the control of any creator. From her creator “God,” she’s sough to be controlled by God’s assistant Max, and even the enticing Duncan Wedder who whisks her away, only to find that he feels entitled to rein her in when she dabbles too much in the idea of experimentation. The movie’s centerpiece of the twisted dance between Duncan and Bella is marvelous in that it also acts as a means of conveying how Duncan tries to keep her at bay despite her insistence on literally dancing to her own drummer.
But in the end, a lot of our lives are still dependent on what our body signals what we might want, or need, or desire, or hunger for. Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” is a remarkable and stunning piece of art, one that mixes fantasy, Victorian Gothic horror, dark and eroticism to build this “Frankenstein” tale. It’s so utterly twisted and revels in being as disgusting as it is erotic. Stone could have easily been lost to Lanthimos’ penchant for aesthetic and mood, but she rises above the wonderful costume design (kudos to Holly Waddington), immaculate supporting performances, and twisted themes to really deliver a pretty epic journey of self discovery.