How perfect Poor Things is. Yorgos Lanthimos’ most recent film tells the story of a woman (Emma Stone) who, pregnant, jumps off a bridge to take her own life. Her half-dead body is found by one of London’s most brilliant and lunatic surgeons (Willem Dafoe), who accomplishes the unthinkable: transplanting the fetus’s brain into the mother’s body and thus creating a new life.
That new woman is called Bella Baxter and she is a twisted but beautiful experiment that allows us, through her eyes, to appreciate life and the human condition. The film is divided into episodes that describe the time and place where Bella finds herself. Yorgos invents the perfect pretext to propose how we would understand life inhabiting this world with the body we have but with a new consciousness or rather without it and without the prejudices and knowledge that influence us throughout life.
The result is moving: the story is brilliant and the script is precise and enormous. Bella’s reflections and questioning are brutal, what happens when she discovers her genitals is nothing compared to what the knowledge of poverty and injustice unleashes on her, while she sails on a luxurious cruise that she did not ask for. travel. All the characters revolve around Bella and the way she alters her existence in every way possible. Mark Ruffalo, who plays Bella’s lover, makes him exceptional, he is another Mark Ruffalo in this story.
Poor Things is about everything human: being born, dying, holding, crying, growing, being amazed at the wonderful and rotten things in the world, loving, second chances. There’s no way this movie won’t touch you in one way or another. As is the director’s custom, the visual style of Poor Things is exceptional, framing, compositions, color palettes, and symmetry: everything is in its place and feels right. The film takes place in a dystopian and surreal past, sometimes dark and sometimes bright and very beautiful.
What a luxurious wardrobe that is clearly defining many of the fashion trends that we will see in the coming months. This is the production design and everything in Poor Things, it evokes the past but works perfectly in 2024. There was talk of eight-minute ovations at the Venice Film Festival, favorable reviews, nominations, and awards won. Still, it will not be until January 25 that in Mexico and throughout Latin America we will be able to be amazed and moved by this film. Please watch it.
This story was written in Spanish by Cora Bravo in Cultura Colectiva.
