Poor Things: a failed parable of female empowerment

(Side note on the poster above from a graphic design point of view: absolutely INCREDIBLE. This is an exceptional example of using striking visuals to represent the philosophical concept of the story, and the whole plot premise - the brain of a child is implanted within the head of her deceased adult mother...)

I should open my ramblings with a note – this post contains spoilers – and with an honest premise: I am not fully familiar with the work of Yorgos Lanthimos. The only film I have watched from beginning to end was The Favourite, which I absolutely loved. I know the plot and themes of Killing Of A Sacred Deer and The Lobster, and I have seen bits of them, promising myself that one day I will dive into them as properly as they deserve. To be really fair, one of my friends is partially to blame for my scandalous shortcoming – when The Lobster came out, she warned me against watching it. “It’s a beautiful piece of art,” she said, “but it will crush your soul. It will throw you into a proper life crisis.” I decided I was too young for a life crisis, and to this day I haven’t found the courage to watch it yet.

That said, I believe sometimes it’s better to dive into a film without much pre-acquired knowledge of its author and let the movie speak for itself. Otherwise, there is always the risk of walking into the screening room with an idea already in mind, a pre-manufactured package of feelings and thoughts that were suggested by critics, interviews, reviews, social media buzz, and most dangerous of them all, the author’s name. Lately I’ve seen a disheartening disposition with Western cinema – too many filmmakers tend to make movies that are more about themselves than their characters, a reflection of their own egos; and too often the audience tend to accept them as praiseworthy without questioning a little further. Strong images, masterful visuals and vacuous slogans seem to be used more and more often to distract the viewers and keep them from seeing what’s really behind the Wizard’s curtain.

I am heartbroken to say, Poor Things left me disenchanted.

This is a film you desperately want to love. From beginning to end, I was mesmerised – the use of unconventional cameras and angles, the colours, the world-building, the genius details, the stellar acting. The premise itself, a modern take on the classic Frankenstein tale, was full of promise. I loved its surrealism; I loved how Bella Baxter’s peculiar and bizarre condition was setting her up to be the perfect protagonist for a philosophical adventure exploring human nature and the human experience. The dialogue was so well-written, the humour was so on point. The pace slowed down in the second act, but my eyes were still fixed on the screen. So why, at the end of it all, was I feeling so underwhelmed?

Imagine standing in front of a wall of ice. You glimpse something stuck on the other side, the outline of a piece of paper. A letter, the page of a novel – it doesn’t matter, you are dying to read it, dying to know what it says, dying to know what it is all about. So you start scratching the icy surface. You scratch, scratch, scratch. And the more you do, the more you can see the silhouette of printed letters, a few of them appear already – big, promising words scattered across the page. Emancipation, inequality, human nature. You hold your breath, full of excitement. You’re almost there, you’re almost about to find out. Scratch, scratch, scratch. But you’ve been scratching for one hundred-forty-two minutes now. And at the end, when the lights turn back on, when the seats are cleared and you’re asked to leave the room, the icy wall still stands between you and that page, thinner yet impenetrable, and you have the frustrated, daunting feeling that the few enticing words you can see through the surface were put there to make you scratch, but that that letter was never meant to be fully read. And that thought is quickly followed by another: that perhaps that letter had never meant to be fully read because the other words, the ones you can’t see clearly, actually say… nothing. Nothing at all. Poor Things, to me, felt exactly like that.

Let’s start with Bella Baxter. Her journey is meant to be a coming-of-age story of liberation and empowerment, both as a human being and, more specifically, as a woman. In the first act, she is treated like a child – and technically, fascinatingly, she also is one – and Dafoe’s character (Dr. Godwin Baxter) tries in every way to keep her within the confinements of his house, in order to “protect” her from the outside world. He has no ill intention but is clearly struggling with parenthood, and we do understand him, we do forgive him, but just like Bella we feel caged, and we are desperate to get out. Now, when Bella finally decides she is definitely, unconditionally leaving, her father gives in at the threat of being hated by her for the rest of his life, and her fiancé’s intervention (an engagement she never had the full capacity to assess and agree on) fails as quickly as it started. No one really puts up a fight to stop her, even if they know that Duncan Weddernburn, Ruffalo’s character, is out there to take advantage of her. His character is like the Fox and the Cat in Pinocchio – except that the Fox and the Cat in Pinocchio didn’t want to have sex with the wooden puppet before he could become a real boy. Still, the comparison stands. He is clearly up to no good. Yet Bella’s father decides to let her free to see the world and make all the mistakes one must make in order to grow up and become an independent adult. I found this really refreshing at first: a good example of subverting the expectations, and a nice portrayal of a parent who, for once, understands that it is better to give a child freedom and support instead of imprisoning them in a gilded cage out of fear and guilt.

Yet, the more the film goes on, the more this first-act turning point reveals a worrying truth about the story: that no one can actually stop Bella Baxter. Only a few ever really try, and when they do, we never expect them to succeed. It’s as if there was a shield protecting our main lead, no one can hurt her, no one can halt her run. She has no enemy, and she is not her own enemy either. Because Bella Baxter has no unappealing flaws and makes no irreversible mistakes. She is no Pinocchio, naïve and always falling into the trap; she is no Monster, devoured by rage, by pain, by the desperate urge to take revenge against his Frankenstein creator. Bella Baxter is a perfect character. And that leads to two dangerous things: a lack of real stakes, and a lack of real growth.

The essence of the human experience, what makes us different from machines, is that relentless process of trial and error that we all need to go through. And the error, to actually be one, must be followed by consequences; it’s facing those consequences that allows a person to grow. That is the human experience. But Bella doesn’t really make mistakes, it’s more that the people surrounding her (more often than not, men) make them, and she is caught in the middle. And to each of the problems she encounters, with little to no responsibility for them, a solution is promptly presented to her every time. There’s not a moment, in the whole film, where Bella needs to fight out of a situation. Not a moment where she needs to take back what she’s lost, because what she’s lost was so fundamental that she can’t go without it. Not a moment where she is challenged by the characters surrounding her, and she loses the battle. Bella Baxter is untouchable, and once that is established, one starts to wonder what the viewers are supposed to be feeling then – without stakes there is no real suspense; without vulnerability there is no real empathy; without human growth there is no real catharsis.

Poor Things is a film where things “almost” happen, all the time. In Lisbon and on the ship, Bella finds herself in situations that, for any other woman, are likely to lead to being assaulted; and we watch and wait, worried as hell, certain she will have to face that brutal reality of female oppression too at some point, as part of her journey – and she almost does, every time Ruffalo’s character shows up in her room enraged and drunk… yet it never happens. In Alexandria, Bella is introduced to the reality of class inequality and poverty, and she almost throws herself into the midst of it, rerouting her journey, exploring in more depth the cruel side of human society and all that comes with it – but instead she goes back on the ship, and after a good cry, she never speaks of it again. In Paris, Bella becomes a prostitute and is forced to go with any client she is chosen by, which almost makes her experience the dehumanising and horrific concept of non-consensual sex (rape, that is), yet that also never happens, because she never opposes to sex, not even once. She makes her clients tell her an anecdote of their childhood, sprinkle on a bit of perfume if they smell, and that is all that’s needed to quench her doubts. To her, everything is a fruitful experience for more empirical data. Again, in Paris, she discovers socialism, and she learns of human exploitation; she almost leads a revolution within the brothel, she proposes changes and almost starts fighting the system in place… but she ends up accepting it. Because, again, that is all just data for her to absorb. So Bella Baxter, more than a human being, ends up resembling a machine of artificial intelligence instead, one that collects information, mimics human behaviour, coldly processes data both from the external world and from within, without ever producing anything that, while being imperfect on the surface, is actually truly imperfect. And when in London she almost experiences murder, either by being the victim of it or the perpetrator, Bella Baxter finds a way to avoid that too. After all, a machine can’t be killed, and can’t commit the error of giving into human emotions and killing someone either.

Perhaps one might object that Poor Things is more of a parable, a fable whose tone is too light-hearted to let Bella delve into the darkest side of humanity for more than five minutes. One ought to just scratch the surface and be content with that. Perhaps yes, perhaps that’s the case – although, when the premise of the story already involves death and suicide, that objection might seem a little odd. However, as a consequence to such objection, one then wonders what the parable is intending to convey instead, with its whimsical visuals and humorous scenarios.

Is it supposed to represent a woman’s adventurous journey to empowerment?

If that is the case, the overall picture is a bit unsettling. A woman, to be emancipated, must not give in to irrational emotions; she must try everything without ever hesitating, without ever saying no; she must be bold and invulnerable. She must put herself in a position where no one can challenge her. It’s interesting how, in the end, the only people whom Bella Baxter allows to live with her are people who always unconditionally endorse her. And if her actions provoke ill feelings in other characters, then the only truth she processes is that the other characters are showing flawed reactions, human patterns that, when detected in her own behaviour too, she must correct and improve. Her fiancé, Max McCandles, is allowed to marry her because he lets her live with no imposition – which is a good thing – but if her actions hurt him, she can never be faulted. He puts no boundaries she must respect in their partnership, because when a woman is empowered, she can’t be confined, no matter whose feelings get hurt in return, unless it’s hers. In fact, when a woman is empowered, partnership can hardly exist – one must not weigh down an emancipated woman with concepts like compromise and teamwork. An emancipated woman stays as long as she pleases and then off she goes, at the risk of never experiencing a real, genuine, emotional relationship – but then again, that would open up to a vulnerability that an emancipated woman must avoid at all costs. In fact, it’s better if she doesn’t bind herself emotionally to any partner at all; on the other hand, when it comes to sex, she better not refuse any partner thrown her way, or her empowering experience can never be entirely one hundred percent.

Because sex, apparently, is a constant and almost omnipresent element in a woman’s journey of exploration of her own self – even her relationships with other women can’t exist without sexual intercourse. It's as if female solidarity, or a profound connection between two women, can’t be full without them sharing sexual acts. And sex, for an empowered woman, is always pleasurable; when it is not, the worst thing it can be is boring. Never painful; never unwanted. Men do not hurt women when they have sex, the worst they can do is make them feel dissatisfied or uncomfortable, yet even that is still somehow an experience that Bella Baxter treasures and doesn’t mind. It’s all part of her growth. It’s all part of her adventure.

And Bella reads and reads and reads, she reads during the whole movie, but everything she reads is absorbed and stored away with no real impact on her story. Her intelligence never actively pushes the plot forward. We are told that she is bright, but her naivety keeps coming to the surface when the plot needs her to be passive. Passive, yes, but mind you, always hungry for knowledge. The interest of an emancipated woman is picked by anything and everything, there is nothing she doesn’t like to delve into. Otherwise her journey would not be full. Yet all these things she learns, she doesn’t apply them to the outside world. She learns of socialism, she learns of inequality, she learns of exploitation, but she lets the system be. She is highly intelligent, yet she is tricked by the brothel’s landlady into thinking that the depression she feels, caused by her condition of exploitation, is just a phase that will lead to better things, an experience she must experience – and her arc is not meant to see her opposing that concept either. After all, prostitution is depicted in a romanticised way, even disguised, at some point, as part of the empowerment process, and not as a soul-breaking consequence of gender and class inequality. Poverty and violence are shown from afar, always from afar, and brushed away as something human beings can’t fix. Bella Baxter just goes with the flow, and since she is empowered enough, the flow can never hurt her.

But if Bella Baxter’s experience of what it is to be human is so void of flaws and errors, if her growth is so perfect to be inhuman, and if her journey has no stakes and poses no real obstacles, then the logical conclusion would be that Poor Things is meant to be a tale of philosophy, more than a character’s arc. The film is about what we observe through Bella Baxter’s analytical, imperfectly-perfect eyes, more than about Bella Baxter herself. We are meant to explore certain themes, discover certain messages. The page behind the wall of ice. And we scratch, scratch, scratch… But what is, exactly, the message we’re supposed to find?

Can it be a manifesto for modern feminism, when the female protagonist comes across as a machine more than a person; when her empowerment doesn’t involve feelings, vulnerabilities, romantic partners; when her sexual exploitation is embraced, accepted, romanticised; when her body is constantly shown naked, even when unnecessary; when the film shies away from portraying male violence, and men around Bella are all terribly flawed, yes, but almost in a child-like, endearing way, and they never pose any real danger, they are incapable of hurting her, even when they do try?

Or perhaps, the film is meant to be a reflection on our society. After all, big words are indeed thrown in there – socialism, capitalism. But Poor Things shies away from delving deeper into that, too. The Alexandria chapter is rushed and quickly concluded; we are told human beings are cruel by nature, but we’re also told that if we believe that and give up on trying to improve ourselves and the world, we are cynics trying to hide our own pain behind philosophy. The Paris chapter takes all the time it can with scenes of sex, yet little is left for any trace of socialism in the plot – it’s just occasionally mentioned by Bella’s female comrade at the brothel. We are kept out of the lectures, kept out of the meetings. We are not the ones supposed to learn what socialism entails, Bella Baxter is.

Then, perhaps, Poor Things wants to explore the ever-present philosophical enigma of human nature, what is a soul, what makes us who we are. Is Bella Baxter the mother or the daughter? Such a powerful question. Yet, once again, the movie shies away from exploring that too. It is a question presented and brushed over. Bella forgives her father rather quickly. Her investigation of who Victoria was, the woman whose body she is inhabiting, the mother of the child whose brain she’s using, is also cut short and simply resolved. The other “monster” Dr. Godwin Baxter has created is hardly present and has no impact on the story, no different behaviour than the one of a new-born child, no progression nor growth. She can’t even be compared with Bella Baxter, nor the film takes its time trying to do so.

It almost feels like Poor Things wanted to dip its toes into many things and had no courage to really explore any of them. Even Bella and Godwin’s father-daughter relationship – one of the most thrilling aspects of the story – is left underdeveloped. Perhaps the narrative would have found more direction, more heart, if it had embraced their conflict and had let Bella learn the truth about her origins as the catalyst for the first act, urging her to escape, filling her with human emotions like resentment, confusion, loss of identity, fear. Challenging her with real struggles, and defining what her character’s journey really is about. Not a woman’s journey to empowerment, but a human being’s journey to self-discovery, which is just as important. Yet as it stands, Poor Things ends up feeling hollow and a little bit soulless. Absolutely masterful, yes, but hardly a masterpiece. A magnetic yet faint-hearted film disguised as a bold work of art.

Overall, an exquisite disappointment.