Poor Things is very pretty, I’ll give it that much. Colors pop, and the watercolor, blurry sky and the scaling but condensed environments of Lisbon and Alexandria both convey the miasma of Bella’s mind quite well. How the background blurs in our young memories and how we remember all the buildings and places that looked large over us but so rarely the walks to them. Those work for me. So much of the rest of the film doesn’t.
I see what it’s going for- it’s hard not to. A journey of womanhood through the conceit of a child’s brain in a woman’s body, when women are treated as children and property to begin with. But it’s so fucking weird, with that conceit, to devote so much time to sex. Sex is an important part of being human for many people, I’m not denying that. But the attention it gets here throughout compared to brief, paltry scenes of Bella reading, seeking knowledge, having an interest in medical science and surgery is disproportional. Especially when the film wants to play her coming home and following in Godwin’s footstep as a culmination of her journey when it’s a facet of the film that barely gets any play in comparison. Angelica Jade Bastien, whose Variety review you should all read, brings up how in a film ostensibly about a cis woman and her relationship with her body menstruation does not come up once. It’s so telling where the film’s true focus lies.
And yes, sex can be beautiful, and conversely so can sex scenes. But the ones here are done dispassionately yet voyueristically. There’s no interiority, no sensuality, no sense of emotion and character felt through them. Compared to films like The Handmaiden they are sterile in heart if not content. It’s a big swing to go from black and white to color, and I can see sex being the impetus for it, sure, but when it’s done like this I don’t buy it. It’s interesting to me that her first time having sex is portrayed like this, with penetration until the man comes, thrice over, and yet her first time with cunnilingus is off screen. I feel like all the sex in this film is similarly narrow and lifeless.
None of what this film is trying to say is new, but much of it is muddled. It wants to rail against the entitlement of men, how they see women as property, how they want them to be exciting and adventurous but only in service of them. And yet it gives Max no grief at all for falling in love with. A child. Literal child, this is not a metaphor, it’s a child’s brain. And marrying her but refusing to have sex with her until marriage because that would be taking advantage, as if marriage would not be taking advantage and has not been used as the ultimate control. On some level the film condemns this, but only in the opposite direction, as part of Emily leaving Max is her frustration over not having sex. It’s baffling that the film seems to take the viewpoint that we ought to let children consent to sex with adults, that it is part of their development and journey to personhood. The film is similarly forgiving to Godwin, who used a woman’s body in a way she would very likely not have consented to all while the film extols a woman’s choice and ownership of her body.
Everything the film has to say about the nature of man and people, about women’s place in society, about sex work, etc, is rote. Nothing here is new, and nothing is heightened by the core conceit. It’s so surface level. And the cast is game enough. Dafoe is Dafoe and that’s always a good time, but I wouldn’t call this one of his greatest roles. Carmichael, much as I love his standup, just is not working here. Stone and Ruffalo are acting for the back seats, and while that has its moments of charm, it’s too much for most of the runtime. And Stone is just. She’s playing into ableist stereotypes for so much of this performance. The film drops the r slur and we’re just gonna pretend that Stone isn’t doing an insulting caricature at the same time? I don’t even want to delve into all the questions raised by the mental disability angle, others could do that better than me, but it’s another level of thoughtlessness and surface level depth.
The score is similarly cloying and overbearing. It insists on a scene rather than being a part of it. It doesn’t enhance it or complement it, it beats you over the head with how the scene is meant to make you feel. I could enjoy the sound of it in isolation, but as a score it’s distracting more than anything else. It’s a bit surprising to me how much this film has been praised as outside of the production design, I don’t see it. I just don’t. For me, this is as much a misfire as Barbie, if not more. Poor things.
5/10
First without that piece of crap this movie would have been that bad it actually would have been good
Yes it's a rare one of those....
"BUT"
Oh..my..God
How fcuking annoying was Annie, she just wouldn't shut the fcuk up, I never ever wanted anyone to get got in a horror movie as much as her.
Disrespectful, disgusting,damn right deluded and a complete and utter tool.
She couldn't rap for shit and she was nowhere near as cool and badass as she thought she was.
She pissed me off and stressed me out that much it took my attention well away from actually
what was a decent messy pretty
awesome horror movie.
I just couldn't take anymore shit from Annie so I just wasn't engaged enough to enjoy the
cool messy going-on's.
If this was any other production other than BlumHouse this would definitely be a hard pass for me
without a doubt.
BlumHouse not like you to fcuk up like this and higher an annoying unbearable piece of shit like that,
but you did, and you got it so wrong this time.
Don't ever do that again to me with her.
What a waste of what could have been a decent flick
And a solid BlumHouse entry.
Like gravedigging, you have to dig deep if you want to get the payoff.
Alex Garland's film about the abuse of women succeeds thanks to its rich tapestry of jarring images. While fans of traditional horror may feel disappointed by its lack of jump scares, those who appreciate the more cerebral psychology of neo-horror (à la Hereditary) will find what they are looking for here.
The film is largely a success thanks to its strong cast and rampant symbolism, though Garland's choice to focus more on the women as victims rather than the titular men as aggressors means the movie misses its mark when it comes to demanding receipts.
My interpretation of the symbolism:
:rotating_light::construction::octagonal_sign::warning:MAJOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT:warning::octagonal_sign::construction::rotating_light:
The film, obviously, is on a mission to portray women (or at least one woman) as a victim to the male gender. That the director wants to paint all men with this broad stroke is evident in the choice to have the same actor (Rory Kinnear) play all of the aggressors, saying, in essence, that deep down all men are the same man: a being that's driven to hurt women.
Of course, her abusive husband, James, isn’t played by Rory Kinnear. Does this mean he’s somehow different than the other men who appear later in the film? Absolutely not, and proof of that is Jame’s injuries. After he falls / jumps from the building, we see that a gate post splits his right arm from his elbow to his hand, and that his left ankle is broken. Later on in the film, all of the men in the town who besiege Harper are shown to share these exact same injuries, illustrating that they are the same man as the abusive estranged husband.
This point is also reinforced by the presence of 'the naked man'. 'The naked man' is the personification of "The Green Man" (who is also symbolized in the stone carving on the church altar). According to Wikipedia, “The Green Man is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring,” which indicates that, as violence breeds violence, the cycle of violent men will continue with no end in sight. This is also what’s meant by the endless cycle of men birthing men that we witness in the film’s climax.
A quick glance at the film’s characters shows us several types of abusers that exist in society.
First, her husband, who starts off emotionally abusing his wife -- “If you leave me, I’ll kill myself” -- before graduating to physical abuse.
Then there’s Geoffrey, the man who rents her the mansion. He represents the “nice guy” who imposes his generosity on women and, when he’s later rebuffed, hurls insults at the women who aren’t interested in him.
The priest represents the patriarchy of religion and the structure put in place to perpetuate male domination and abuse.
Samuel is the young man 'frat bro' who feels he’s entitled to his ‘bit of fun’ and rebukes women who dare refuse him what he considers to be his due.
The police officer represents authority because, when he arrives at Harper’s rental property the night of the home invasion, he stands in her front yard yet neither says nor does anything. He’s as useless and impotent as the police and other authorities women might turn to when they seek assistance.
All of this is not to say that Jessie doesn’t have her allies. There is her best friend Riley (Gayle Rankin) who provides moral support throughout the film, and the kind policewoman who speaks with Harper when the police initially arrest the naked man. Garland’s point here is that the best place for a woman to get the support and assistance she needs is with other women.
This concept is driven home by the second figure etched into the altar (on the opposite face of The Green Man), that of the sheela na gig. The sheela na gig is a carving of a woman with an exaggerated vulva and is used to symbolize fertility and protection against evil.
That’s a brief rundown of the symbolism in Men, and also serves to illustrate what I appreciate about the film: it’s not because it’s horror that I have to turn off my brain. [/spoiler]
Began watching this thinking the whole season had been released - I've just watched episode 6 and find I've been cut off for whole week!
Aaaaarrrgh!
And now I'm going to have to wait another week between each of the last few episodes!
Gaaaaahhh!
So frustrating because this show is absolutely brilliant. (And I have no patience).
I'm a fan of Sharon Horgan and her dark, slightly twisted, but utterly relatable humour anyway, but occasionally she misses the mark slightly...
This is not one of those times.
I mean, I love 'Catastrophe' (to my mind, her best previous project), but this is even better - and that's a pretty high bar.
We begin by knowing what happens at the end, but - in a manner similar to the play 'Equus' (except with laughs) - the mystery that hooks us in is finding out how it happens.
Well - I'm hooked anyway! Next week sure feels like an awful long time away now, boooo.... I will have to console myself with re-watching 'Catastrophe' again, in the meantime, for a dose of Horgan-methadone.
Having said that, every one of the female leads in this is spectacular, and "The Prick" is absolutely marvellous in making the viewer immediately despise this slimy sadist.
Bravo all round!
Personal comment:
I got to say as someone in his freshman year in college i can relate so much with these emotions and drama,that were put in such a non-childish way. Adolescence is a hard time not more to ourselves but to the ones that have to put up with us :). This was the kind off movie that if you get connected with, it will toy with your emotions as much as it did with mines. We have so much to be gratefull and althought it might sometimes seem this is a journey we do alone, if we look behind we'll see that the ones that love us the most are the ones pushing us up this path and into our lives,they are the ones that build us.
Opinion:
This was the first work i've seen from Greta Gerwig and i have to applaud to her. Very well written all the questions that were coming along got their answer and were not simply given, it has a way to pull you into Lady Bird's dramas and experiences, it approachs more areas like drinking and smoking and virginity in a less significant but still very important way that a lot of movies show has the "breakthrough" of adolescense/young adult.
Saoirse Ronan was absolutly a great pick for this role and the parents were on point when it came to that whole good parent bad parent situation.And the landscape shots were very well captured that really got a feeling of wormth that we get from our hometown.
After watching all im thinking to myself is that i am not a lady bird,but a mister bird, and im so glad that i learned how to fly out of the nest, because althought it allows me to explore the world it also makes me want to return home.
