Poor Things
哀れなるものたち
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A woman with an infant's transplanted brain discovers 'furious jumping' and refuses every man's version of shame.
London, 1882, in a retro-futurist version of the Victorian age. The surgeon Godwin Baxter hires a medical student, Max McCandles, to record the progress of a strange, almost wordless young woman who lives in his house. Her name is Bella. Godwin tells Max the truth: Bella's body is that of a pregnant woman who had taken her own life, and he revived it by giving her the brain of the child she was carrying. She has an infant's mind in a grown woman's body, and she is learning fast.
As her words and her curiosity grow, Max falls in love with her, and with Godwin's blessing they become engaged. But Bella has discovered sexual pleasure, and she runs away with Duncan Wedderburn, a dissolute lawyer, to Lisbon, where they have sex almost without pause. When she grows too independent for him, Duncan smuggles her onto a cruise ship. Two passengers introduce her to philosophy, while Duncan drinks and gambles. At Alexandria she sees the suffering of the poor, and hands his winnings to crewmen who promise to help them and keep the money.
Put ashore at Marseille, the pair reach Paris penniless. Bella goes to work in a brothel, which breaks Duncan, and she leaves him. She learns from its owner, Madame Swiney, and begins a relationship with another woman who works there, Toinette, who introduces her to socialism. Godwin, now dying, sends Max to bring her home. Bella and Max are about to marry when Duncan interrupts with General Alfie Blessington, who claims her as his wife, Victoria. Bella goes with him to learn who she was, and finds a cruel and violent man; she understands that Victoria killed herself to escape him. When Alfie locks her in, threatens her with a gun and tells her he will have her clitoris removed and make her pregnant, she throws his sedative in his face, and he shoots himself in the foot. Bella brings him back to Godwin's house and, with Max's help, gives him a goat's brain. Godwin dies peacefully with them at his side. Bella, Max and Toinette begin a new life in the house, while Alfie contentedly eats grass.
Starring
Emma Stoneas Bella Baxter
A woman brought back to life with an infant's brain, who sets out to discover the world and her own desires.
Bella Baxter’s story
Bella begins almost without words, kept indoors in Godwin's house, and learns fast. Engaged to Max, she wants the world, and runs off to Lisbon with Duncan, where she eats, dances and wanders alone. On a cruise, two passengers give her philosophy, and at Alexandria the sight of the poor breaks her; she gives Duncan's winnings to crewmen who keep them. Penniless in Paris, she works in a brothel, leaves Duncan and learns socialism from Toinette. Home at Godwin's deathbed, she learns how she was made, and forgives him. Claimed at her wedding by Alfie, the husband of the woman she was, she sees his cruelty and understands why Victoria ended her life. She escapes, gives him a goat's brain, and takes up Godwin's work with Max and Toinette.
Mark Ruffaloas Duncan Wedderburn
A debauched lawyer who carries Bella off across Europe and cannot bear that she will not be controlled.
Willem Dafoeas Godwin Baxter
The surgeon who created Bella, who loves her like a father and keeps her close like an experiment.
Godwin Baxter’s story
Godwin is a surgeon who recovered the body of a pregnant woman who had taken her own life, and revived it with the brain of the child she was carrying. He keeps Bella at home, hires Max to record her progress, and encourages the two to marry on condition that they live with him. When Bella insists on leaving with Duncan, he lets her go, with money for emergencies. Missing her, he begins the same experiment on another woman, Felicity, whose mind develops more slowly. Terminally ill, he sends Max to bring Bella home, tells her the truth of how she was made, and in time is forgiven. He dies peacefully, with Bella and Max at his side.
Ramy Youssefas Max McCandles
Godwin's student and assistant, who falls in love with Bella and waits for her to come back.
Christopher Abbottas Alfie Blessington
A violent general, the husband of the woman Bella once was, who comes to reclaim her.
Why it matters
Poor Things imagines a woman born without shame and sends her through a world built to teach it. Every man in Bella's life tries to own her in his own style: the scientist who made her, the suitor who waits, the libertine who wants her helpless, the husband who wants her mutilated. The film's answer is her appetite for everything, for sex, books, argument and justice, and her refusal to be embarrassed by any of it. It treats her time in the brothel as work she chooses and learns from, not as a fall, and it lets her end the story as the one holding the scalpel. Yorgos Lanthimos adapted it from Alasdair Gray's novel; it won the Golden Lion at Venice and four Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Emma Stone. The question it leaves is the one Bella keeps asking: what a woman might become if no one had taught her what to be ashamed of.