Poor Things
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Poor Things is a 2023 Black Comedy film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Tony McNamara, adapting a 1992 book by Alasdair Gray with the same name. It stars Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Christopher Abbott, Ramy Youssef, and Jerrod Carmichael.
In Victorian London, Mad Doctor Godwin Baxter (Dafoe) finds a dead pregnant woman (Stone), puts the fetus's brain inside the dead mother's head, and reanimates the body, naming her Bella. Baxter's assistant Max McCandles (Youssef) is tasked with observing Bella's mental development, but later decides to marry her. Before they can get married, Bella runs off with Godwin's rakish lawyer Duncan (Ruffalo) on a journey filled with sex, self-discovery, and more sex.
- Amoral Attorney: Duncan is a lawyer who offers to free Bella from her restrictive living arrangements, but is a hedonist who's primarily interested in sex with Bella rather than her well-being.
- Brainless Beauty: Bella is an adult with the brain of a baby. Despite her clear lack of mental development, Max and Duncan are smitten with her.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The movie is in black-and-white until Bella and Duncan's trip to Lisbon.
- Exact Words: Duncan tries to get Bella to stop embarrassing him during a dinner conversation by telling her to use only the phrases "Delighted", "How marvelous", and "How do they get the pastries so crisp?". Bella obeys.
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Duncan: And how is your dear father, Kitty? |
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- Foreshadowing: While at a hotel in Lisbon, a stranger approaches Bella and refers to her as "Victoria Blessington". This is later revealed to be the name of Bella's mother, in whose body Bella's brain was transplanted.
- A God Am I: Godwin, the Mad Doctor who created Bella, is referred to as "God" by Bella.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Godwin was the subject of many painful and disfiguring experiments conducted by his father. When he describes them to Max, he responds in shock as expected, but the nonplussed Godwin casually describes his father as "unconventional" and simply ignores Max's reactions.
- Hulk Speak: Bella, having the brain of an infant, drops words from sentences, inflects words incorrectly, and refers to herself in the third person until she mentally develops and is able to speak eloquently.
- Mad Doctor: Godwin Baxter is a doctor who was able to make advances in medicine, but conducts morally questionable research and is referred to as a "monster" by one of his students.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Godwin has a collection of animals that are composed of two different species. Some include a goat with a duck's head and a chicken with a pig's head.
- Professional Sex Ed: While Bella is working in a brothel, a man brings his two sons to show them how sex works. The children take notes while the father has sex with Bella.
- Unusual Euphemism: Bella refers to sex as "furious jumping" and sexual pleasure as "happiness".