Poor Things starring Emma Stone
Poor Things, is a jewel-toned steampunk world that blends the science fiction of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with a 19th-century bildungsroman.
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RicheViews
2/10/20248 min read
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The Views:
Yorgos Lanthimos' latest feature, Poor Things, is a jewel-toned steampunk world that blends the science fiction of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with a 19th-century bildungsroman. It features Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a Victorian Wednesday Addams hungry for everything in her path. Mark Ruffalo plays Duncan Wedderburn, a reprobate cad whose ego is the size of an entire continent. Amy Youssef is a wonderful foil to Ruffalo, kind, gentle, and calm in all the ways Ruffalo is wild. The film has a joyful, unhinged nature to the proceedings, reveling in everything from a wild dance sequence to the myriad scenes of vigorous, pleasurable sex (or as Bella calls it, "fierce jumping"). Lanthimos and McNamara lean heavily into privileging female desire and the ways in which pleasure should be equally a woman's domain. The world is not the most traditional of Victorian settings, but fantastical.
For all its hilarity, explicit sex — which, for the record, is a) extremely sexy, b) earned, and c) hysterically funny — and foul-mouthed dialogue, Poor Things is a romance about a woman learning to fall in love with herself, no matter what others think she should be. For that reason alone, Bella is a cinematic heroine for the ages and Poor Things is a unique piece of artistry. With Yorgos Lanthimos behind the camera, it's not hard to find it fascinating to be alive. Grade: A-
Cast and Characters:
Emma Stone as Bella Baxter
Bella is a young woman who, after committing suicide, is brought back to life by her guardian, but there’s one big change that makes her not be the same person she was before her death.
Mark Ruffalo as Duncan Wedderburn
Duncan is a debaucherous lawyer, as Duncan Wedderburn, wearing a grey pinstripe suit and sitting under an umbrella, in Poor Things
Willem Dafoe as Dr. Godwin “God” Baxter
Dr. Baxter is reminiscent of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Dr. Baxter is an eccentric scientist and Bella’s guardian, and his experiments are reminiscent of those of Dr. Victor Frankenstein from Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.
Ramy Youssef as Max McCandles
Max has a strong bond with Dr. Baxter & Bella. Max MacCandles is Dr. Baxter’s assistant, who, with his permission, asks for Bella’s hand in marriage before she realizes she can get more from life than an arranged marriage.
Christopher Abbott as Alfie Blessington
Alfie is a ghost from the past. Alfie Blessington is a man from Bella’s past life, whose intentions when reconnecting with her aren’t exactly noble.
Margaret Qualley as Felicity
Felicity is another of Dr. Baxter’s experiments, though very different from Bella. Margaret Qualley is a model and actress, and made her acting debut in the drama movie Palo Alto, and played Amelia Kuttner in The Nice Guys, Pussycat in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and starred in the TV series The Leftovers and Maid.
Kathryn Hunter as Madame Swiney
Madame Swiney is the woman in charge of the brothel Bella ends up working in. Kathryn Hunter is known for her roles as Arabella Figg in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the witches in The Tragedy of Macbeth, Charmian in the TV series Rome, and Eedy Karn in Andor.
Suzy Bemba as Toinette
Toinette is a young woman working at the brothel who quickly befriends Bella. Suzy Bemba played Saifa in Drift and Jessica in Homecoming.
Jerrod Carmichael as Harry Astley
Harry Astley is a passenger on a cruise ship who befriends Bella. Jerrod Carmichael played Garf in Neighbors and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, and Jimmy in Transformers: The Last Knight.
Hanna Schygulla as Martha Von Kurtzroc
Martha Von Kurtzroc is a passenger on the cruise ship who also befriends Bella. Among Hanna Schygulla’s most recent projects are The Edge of Heaven, Everything Went Fine, and Peter von Kant.
Movie Plot:
The film begins in London, as a young lady (Emma Stone) jumps from a bridge to her death. She is later found by a deformed scientist played by named Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). He recovers her and reanimates her as Bella, a completely new person who acts like a small child and calls Godwin "God."
During one of Godwin's talks, he calls upon Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) to join him and become his assistant, along with his maid Mrs. Prim (Vicki Pepperdine). Despite Bella's condition, Max quickly falls in love with her. While working together, Godwin lets Max know that after he recuperated Bella's body from the water, he saw that she was pregnant, and e replaced her original brain with that of the baby, thus her absence of maturity. Bella sees Godwin as something of a father figure.
Max spends time with Bella, attempting to help her develop her knowledge. At the point when he begins educating her concerning places all over the world, Bella's advantage in going out increases, something that Godwin attempts to deny her from doing. He is eventually convinced to join Bella and Max for an outing in a nearby park. A battle follows when Bella attempts to leave once more, and Godwin chloroforms her to quiet her down.
At the point when she awakens, Bella begins to findself-pleasure and begins trying to masturbate. Godwin later lets Max know that he thinks there is a shared love among Bella and Max, and recommends that he request her hand in marriage. Max concedes he has feelings for her, and he in the end asks Bella for marriage, on Godwin's condition that they live with him.
Godwin is visited by a legal counselor named Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), who later meets Bella and rapidly starts to like her. Duncan offers Bella an opportunity to go along with him out traveling to Lisbon, despite the fact that Godwin wouldn't permit it. She reports her intentions to Godwin and Max, who both express disappointment, yet while Godwin lets her go, Bella kisses Max and chloroforms him so he won't attempt to seek after her further.
Bella and Duncan travel to Lisbon, where Bella appreciates new social encounters, as well as constant sex marathons with Duncan, which she calls “furious jumping”. Bella later goes out in the city all alone, seeing things according to a fantastical point of view. Even though Bella finds that her interests diverge from Duncan's, he invites her to join him and other people of a higher class. Bella participates in hyperactive dancing during one night at supper, which Duncan participates. After that, he gets into a fight with another man who lay eyes on Bella.
Back in London, Max sees Godwin is missing Bella in her absence, however he needs to proceed with his research without her. He tries a similar experiment on another woman named Felicity (Margaret Qualley), but her intelligence grows slower than Bella's.
Duncan before long begins to become exasperated with Bella and his powerlessness to control her. He smuggles her in a huge trunk onto a journey to Alexandria. On the boat, Bella meets travelers Harry Astley (Jerrod Carmichael) and Martha Von Kurtzroc (Hannah Schygulla), whose mark of perspectives she starts to share when they enlighten her concerning Philosophy. Duncan has a mental breakdown as Bella's inclinations grow past his own, and he attempts to go after Martha, which simply gets him whacked in the face with her stick. At the point when they arrive at Alexandria, Harry shows Bella a gathering of lower class individuals in the city, a few dead in the roads, which sickens her to the real factors of the world and leads her to have a breakdown before Harry controls her.
Bella gathers Duncan's cash and gives it to the crew of the ship for her thought is a generous donation (they essentially pocket the cash). Without any finances left, Bella and Duncan are eliminated from the boat in Marseille, however she expresses farewell to Harry first. The pair end up in Paris, where Bella happens upon a whorehouse and looks for business and lodging by Madame Swiney (Kathryn Tracker). Duncan becomes disgusted by Bella having sex with various men, then becomes pissed when he learns she had emergency funds given to her by Godwin. Later on, Bella makes friends with Toinette (Suzie Bemba), a fellow prostitute who teaches her about socialism and has sex with her.
Duncan eventually experiences a breakdown and is placed in an institution. He keeps in touch with Godwin, who is falling vigorously sick. He sends Max to visit Duncan, who lets him know what Bella has been doing. She is acquired back to Godwin's home London to see him once more. In the wake of rejoining with Godwin and returning to great terms with him, Bella and Max intend to continue with getting properly married, him not thinking about her sexual endeavors. However, just as the ceremony is going underway, it is interfered with by General Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott), who tends to Bella as his wife, Victoria. He says he has come to recover her and brings her away back to his back home.
Bella learns from Alfie that as Victoria, they would appreciate being brutal to the lower class, and that she guaranteed her child was an incredible difficulty to her. Bella understands that she had ended her life to move away from her terrible marriage. At the point when she attempts to leave, Alfie points a gun at her and orders her to drink a chloroform-bound mixed drink. Alfie shoots himself in the foot when she throws the drink in his face, and then she passes out.
Bella gets back to Godwin and lays in bed with him and Max as he he dies peacefully. Bella is later shown proceeding with Godwin's research alongside Max, Mrs. Prim, Felicity, and Toinette. Felicity's intelligence is increasing while Alfie has his brain replaced with that of a goat. Bella goes through the early evening time perusing with a light grin all over.
Poor Things starring Emma Stone
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