Poor Things, the latest film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, is just delightfully absurd. On its surface, it’s a steampunk black comedy set in Victorian era London about a woman on a journey of self-exploration and maturity. But at its core, like most of Yanthimos’ filmography, it’s about finding genuine human connection in a bizarre world. It’s a story that’s all-too familiar, but the execution is simply astounding.

At the center of it all is Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a corpse reanimated by a mad scientist who replaced her brain with that of her unborn child. Bella is a grown woman yet behaves like a toddler when we first meet her – walking around stiff, grunting single words, and throwing out plates with glee. She refers to her creator and father figure as “God,” both a double entendre and short for his full name Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). An accomplished surgeon, Godwin has visible scars on his face and all sorts of medical conditions as a result of repeated experiments his own father did to him growing up, which becomes a running joke that gets increasingly more absurd as the film goes on.

Over the course of her growth, many of the men, including Godwin himself, around Bella’s life try to control her in service of their own agendas. Godwin does not allow Bella outside and restricts her movements inside their own in the name of research. Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), a student turned research assistant to Godwin, ends up falling in love with her and intends to marry her. Things turn for the worse, however, when a sleazeball solicitor, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), arrives at their residence and whisks Bella away from her family. What follows is a grand European adventure of self-indulgence and sexual discovery, as Bella learns about the ins and outs of a patriarchal society.

Poor Things is the second collaboration between the Greek auteur and Emma Stone, reuniting after 2018’s The Favourite. Here, Emma Stone delivers a next-level performance in such a complex role. Her Bella can sometimes be crass, selfish, and cruel, but she’s also genuinely kind and sincere. As she discovers other people suffering in poverty, she immediately feels the need to selflessly help out. Watching her from transform from an innocent child to a fully mature woman, in her physical demeanor and intellectual capabilities, is simply wonderful. Her continuously evolving dialogue, from simple words to baroque patterns, remains to be one of the joys in Tony McNamara’s screenplay, adapted from Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel.

As for other performers, Mark Ruffalo is outrageously hilarious, whose role allows him to bring out a cartoonishly naughty performance. It’s something I haven’t seen him do before. Ramy Youssef provides a gentle companion for Bella as Max, who turns out to be one of the good ones in world full of cruel men.

Of course, all of this wouldn’t work as successfully as it did without the beautiful world it’s set in. Production designers Shona Heath and James Price have created a rich, steampunk version of the 19th century filled with vivid colors. This world is often presented through a fish-eye lens and peepholes by cinematographer Robbie Ryan, suggesting that Bella almost always feels like an outsider looking in until she fully blossoms into a sexually liberated woman. And together, Lanthimos’ crew have made a visual treat out of Poor Things.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to point out that it explores themes as Barbie, where a woman with childlike innocence discovers the horrors of a patriarchal society. It’s basically the more adult version of it. But Poor Things executes its themes with more depth and in better ways. Although the film takes its protagonist on a path of a vulgar sexual odyssey, it’s grandiose, hysterically funny, and surprisingly poignant by the end, as Bella becomes fully complex person with dreams and aspirations, not afraid to utilize the skills she’s learned when necessary.

Rating:

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.