REVIEW:
Now this is a crazy movie. Director Yorgos Lanthimos is no stranger to weird sci-fi concepts, from his breakout movie, The Lobster to his follow-up, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Well, Poor Things has them all beat, in terms of strangeness. It’s about a mad scientist who puts the brain of a baby into the body of a woman. And we spend the movie on a journey with this woman as she leaves the scientist’s home and travels the world having bizarre adventures.
One thing really cool about the movie is the way that each adventure or story takes place in a new country. This enables the movie to use title cards like chapter headings to help us keep track of where we are, not just in terms of place, but also in terms of story. The movie works as a black comedy with Bella (played by Emma Stone,) learning all the basics of being a human, including how to walk and how to talk.
And the movie takes risks and chances with how far it goes, including a whole lot of sex. At one point, during one of the stories, Bella even becomes a prostitute. And somehow the movie makes that okay, as it becomes more about exploration and open-mindedness than exploitation. The movie really picks up steam in its final acts, when it connects to Bella’s past, and who she was before the surgery. This one is definitely bizarre, and not for everyone, but it is creative and different, and certainly memorable.