Poor Things

The woman sitting two seats down from me in the theater spent the first twenty minutes trying to open a bag of kale chips as quietly as possible, which provided a strangely rhythmic, crinkly soundtrack to Bella Baxter’s initial reanimation. It was the perfect accompaniment, honestly. There is something fundamentally "crinkly" and unpolished about the way Emma Stone (fresh off her win for La La Land) moves in the opening act of Poor Things. She stomps, she grunts, and she breaks things with a toddler’s curiosity and a giant’s strength.

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the mastermind behind the delightfully dry The Favourite and the deeply unsettling The Lobster, this film is a candy-colored middle finger to the idea that "prestige cinema" has to be boring or gray. It’s a Frankenstein story, sure, but one where the monster doesn't want to hide in a windmill—she wants to eat sixty custard tarts, see the world, and discover exactly why everyone is so obsessed with "furious jumping" (that’s sex, for the uninitiated).

Science, Sex, and Socializing

The "Science Fiction" label here isn't about spaceships or laser beams; it's about the ultimate "what if?" What if you could restart a human brain without the baggage of social conditioning? Willem Dafoe plays Godwin "God" Baxter, a scientist who looks like he was put together using spare parts from a Victorian butcher shop. He brings Bella back to life by transplanting a literal infant’s brain into her skull, and watching her develop is like watching a time-lapse video of a flower blooming, if that flower occasionally spit on people and punched men in the face.

I’ve always found that the best sci-fi uses a bizarre premise to hold up a mirror to our own weird habits. As Bella leaves her London bubble to travel through Lisbon, Alexandria, and Paris, she encounters the "rules" of the world—patriarchy, capitalism, polite conversation—and finds them all utterly ridiculous. It’s a movie that proves being "polite" is just a social parasite that sucks the fun out of life. Watching her navigate a high-society dinner with the grace of a bowling ball hitting a set of crystal glasses is, quite simply, the most fun I’ve had in a theater in years.

The Ruffalo-Stone Connection

While Emma Stone is the undisputed heart of the film, delivering a performance that is equal parts physical comedy and soul-searching depth, Mark Ruffalo almost steals the entire show. Usually, we see him as the dependable hero or the world-weary scientist, but here, he is Duncan Wedderburn, a rake who thinks he’s a god-tier seducer but is actually just a walking ego in a tight suit.

Mark Ruffalo plays a Victorian fuckboy with the emotional stability of a damp napkin, and his gradual descent into a sobbing, pathetic mess as Bella outgrows him is comedic gold. Their chemistry isn't about romance; it's about the clash between a woman who is becoming infinite and a man who is becoming increasingly small. It’s a refreshing change for the contemporary era, where we often get sanitized romances. This is messy, loud, and frequently naked.

A Very Expensive Fever Dream

For a film with a $35 million budget, Poor Things looks like it cost triple that. In an age where we’re used to the flat, gray look of many streaming-first movies, Yorgos Lanthimos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan (who also shot C'mon C'mon) opted for something much more daring. They used 35mm film, including some rare Ektachrome stock that gives the world an iridescent, dreamlike glow.

The production was a massive undertaking, filmed primarily at Origo Studios in Budapest. While many modern blockbusters rely on "The Volume" (those giant LED screens used in The Mandalorian), Poor Things used a mix of massive, hand-painted backdrops and physical sets that feel tangible. You can almost smell the sea air and the stale perfume. Apparently, Emma Stone was so committed to the bit that she actually ate about 60 Portuguese custard tarts during the Lisbon sequence. I felt her pain; I can barely manage three before my blood turns to syrup.

The film's box office success—raking in over $117 million—is a huge win for what I like to call "The Weirdness Renaissance." In a decade dominated by sequels and safe bets, seeing a movie about a reanimated woman's sexual awakening become a genuine cultural touchstone is heartening. It didn't just win Oscars; it started conversations on social media about agency and the "female gaze" that actually felt substantive rather than just performative.

Poor Things is a rare bird: a film that is intellectually stimulating, visually breathtaking, and flat-out hilarious. It takes the bones of a sci-fi classic and grafts on a heart that is pulsing with modern relevance. While the 141-minute runtime might feel like a bit of a marathon if you aren't vibing with the fish-eye lenses and the quirky score, the journey is more than worth the price of admission. It’s a celebration of being alive, being messy, and refusing to apologize for either. If you haven't seen it yet, go in with an open mind and maybe skip the custard tarts beforehand.