NOTE: This post contains spoilers for the movie Poor Things. Chief among the spoilers is that this film is a festering, throbbing, physical-pain-inducing failure-slog. But anyway. If you don’t want to know what happens in this film, skip this newsletter.
NOTE 2: If you loved the film, I am about to yuck your yum real hard, so you also might want to skip this newsletter. (Good friends in particular who loved the movie, you can definitely skip this one in the service of still liking me later and not thinking I’m an insufferable, fun-hating snob.)
NOTE 3: And if you haven’t seen it, this newsletter will make less sense. But perhaps the furious energy of my anger will entertain you and light your home and warm you during a chilly night. Anyway.
All the thoughts I had while watching Poor Things
Hell yeah. Day off, out at the movies. Let’s do this.
Emma Stone is good. I like her.
Willem Dafoe is in this? Hell yeah! And that Ramy guy!
So…the baby brain is in the adult lady’s body. The adult lady who committed suicide. OK, dark.
OK. Ramy’s first line is “What a beautiful r*tard!” God, this is just going to be Edgelordfest 2024, isn’t it? (Forgive me. How do I type-bleep this word while still making sure readers understand what he said? I tried.)
Emma Stone’s character is masturbating with fruit. OK. How old is she exactly?
It appears I’m supposed to be laughing. Lady behind me is laughing. I am not laughing. Uhhh…
Holy shit am I a prude now?
But seriously am I watching a child masturbate.
She’s doing it again.
Wait the plot of this movie is that a child’s brain was put into her nameless mother’s body and now she’s refreshing and unique and different from all the other girls and the main way this manifests is through…sex?
And feminists like this?
OK I’m opposed to checking phones in theaters but has Fox News has started a culture war over this yet?
[checks phone] They have not!
AM I A PRUDE??? How is this a movie?
Holy shit it’s only been 25 minutes.
Oh my God Yorgos’ cover for the kid-having-sex thing seems to be a throwaway line about how “She matures fast so it’s ok.” COP-OUT. Weak sauce. Booooo.
I mean the premise of this movie is genuinely “no see she’s a child who LOOKS like an adult so it’s fine,” which is coincidentally the defense of every perv on “To Catch a Predator.”
Who hosted that, Stone Phillips?
[checks phone] No, Chris Hansen.
OK but if Chris Hansen stormed onscreen and gave every man in this movie a sharp punch to the balls I’d give it 5 stars.
Emma Stone is doing a great job with the material she has been given.
Unfortunately, that material is a bag of diarrhea. In screenplay form.
Mark Ruffalo is funny. I like you, Mark Ruffalo. I am enjoying this performance.
But also you are having all the sex with Emma Stone, whose character, I must stress again, is a CHILD.
Is Emma’s main character trait “she likes sex”?
My stars! Is Yorgos Lanthimos suggesting that [gasp] sexual liberation for women is [fans self] GOOD?
WELCOME TO THE 1970S, YORGOS.
Okay. Emma Stone is wandering Lisbon and found a woman singing. Emma seems enthralled! Moved! I smell growth! Depth!
Nope we’re right back to the “liberation through sex” plot.
No, seriously. A pregnant woman’s body is taken over by her baby, and then said body proceeds to be used by men. But it’s okay because she likes sex.
I mean.
This is.
Kind of.
I don’t know.
Not great?
What is the runtime on this damn- [checks phone] HOLY SHIT THIS MOVIE IS 2 AND A HALF HOURS LONG.
Okay, this dance number is fun.
I have more than an hour left.
[opens phone, writes Notes-app fan letter] Dear Chris Hansen: I never truly appreciated your work until now. I am not a Catholic, but if you would like to be canonized, I will write a hearty letter of recommendation on your behalf.
Oh Emma is meeting an old woman. Okay! Are we going to have growth? A meaningful connection with a friend? Intergenerational wisdom?
Hahahahaha of course not. Emma is asking her if she masturbates.
Oh Jerrod Carmichael is teaching her that poverty exists! Is Emma going to broaden her horizons? Go change the world?
Hahahahaha of course not. No, she’s going to go be a sex worker.
(Which is NOT IN AND OF ITSELF BAD. I’m just saying they dropped the poverty plotline real fast.)
Anyway, it’s all okay. She’s a socialist sex worker. Who falls in love with a coworker. Okay! A meaningful, deeply explored connection between women?
Hahahahahaha of course not c’mon.
But seriously, how do no women in this movie wonder what Emma’s deal is? The men are all under the sexual spell of babybrain woman, and…okay, fine. But. HOW DO NONE OF THE WOMEN TREAT HER LIKE A HUMAN INSTEAD OF A DELIGHTFULLY ODD CREATURE? SHE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD, PEOPLE. SHE IS BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF AT EVERY TURN. LADIES. HELP HER UNDERSTAND THINGS FOR GOD’S SAKE.
Has Alison Bechdel seen this?
If so, did it give her a stroke? Is she okay? Should someone call her?
Would Alison Bechdel and Chris Hansen like to burn this theater to the ground with me?
What we know about Emma Stone’s character: she’s every man’s dream girl, and her main interests are (a) sex (b) without emotional attachments (c) reading (d) socialism (e) alcohol and holy shit did every man I dated in my 20s get together and write this screenplay?
[checks phone] OK, they did not.
Sweet merciful Jesus, there are 45 minutes left. My phone is dying.
[scrawls missive on napkin] My dear husband: It has been 5 weeks since I first struck out for the Silver Spring Majestic in hopes of seeing the moving picture Poor Things. I had not been informed of the lengthy ordeal this would be. I may yet scavenge sustenance from the floor, in the form of Mike & Ike’s and popcorn remnants. Should you see me again, I shall be much diminished, of a permanently sour disposition, with a case of scurvy as well. I trust you will raise our son up right. Remarry if you must.
Willem Defoe’s character has made another babybrained woman. Is this going to go anywhere meaningful? Does Emma have a friend now?
Hahahahahahahaha no you gullible sweet summer child.
Ooh, she’s leaving a man at the altar. Okay. Now we’re cooking with gas! Maybe we’ll learn more about the inner life of the mother who killed herself?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha nope.
Evil ex-husband wants to CUT OFF HER CLITORIS. Oh I GET IT! Sex is GOOD and LIBERATING! [stands and screams] I GET IT! DO YOU HEAR ME? I GET IT. CAN YOU STOP THE FILM NOW?
This movie is as subtle as a railroad spike through the head.
Ah good. She’s ending the movie by punishing evil ex-husband by transplanting a goat’s brain into his body. The cycle of violence continues.
[scrawls on napkin] Dear Chris Hansen: Please do a citizen’s arrest on Mr. Yorgos Lanthimos. Dude’s a perv. Also, I wasted $14 on him. And got scurvy.
Links
MY STUFF:
Angry voters! I called a bunch of voters and asked them to tell me about Congress’ latest slow-motion train wreck, in which a border-security/Ukraine-and-Israel-aid bill fell apart. The voters were…annoyed.
Haley vs. Trump on foreign policy: Would you believe that voters in South Carolina didn’t really clock Trump’s NATO remarks when they happened? My colleagues Stephen Fowler, Sarah McCammon, and I got together to talk about Haley battling Trump on foreign policy in her home state.
(Also I have a fun story coming in the next few days and you should get properly excited okay watch this space.)
OTHER STUFF:
More Poor Things discourse: Just this morning, the talented Lyz Lenz posted her own (less rage-addled) thoughtful dissection of Poor Things. Go read it!
Let the eagle soar! Between Toby Keith’s death (and hearing “Courtesy of the Red White And Blue” at Trump rallies) and Jon Stewart’s return, it’s 2004 again, baybee. At least in my brain, it is. So anyway, this is how I came to be singing John Ashcroft’s “Let the Eagle Soar” to myself at work. And a coworker pointed me toward this SOUL-REVIVING punk version:
Your latest Millennial-flavored internet source of joy you’ve forgotten: Rejected, by Don Hertzfeldt
Thank you!! I enjoyed the weird garish world of the movie but like you....I was like wait is this just about having sex with a baby?????? And then I felt insane because all my friends were like "no, it's so so so good" so I've been thinking about it for TWO MONTHS. And finally decided, no the movie is fun to watch but when you scratch the surface really stupid. And for my money, if I want to watch a stupid movie with sex, at least Saltburn has the age of consent right. Plus the ableist undertones of this movie aren't great.
The book has a final section written by Bella where she basically says what we just read (her husband’s narrative - basically what we see in the film) is a load of nonsense, a fantasy driven by her husband’s preoccupation with gothic fiction and she was just a woman saved from drowning after a suicide attempt. It also has a lot of footnotes and context about her later career as a doctor and public health campaigner.
Thats not an unqualified recommendation of the book (which I read in maybe 1998) but I do think the film really botches the adaptation in ways that so that character dirty.