Poor Things: A Male Feminist Fever Dream

wh things is a well-acted often funny and Artful film with a moral Center as empty and as its main protagonist it's a film that armors itself in its gudy early 2000 skateboard video aesthetic and the undeniable Talent of its performers to disguise its function as Hollow do as thou Wilt affirmational wh things is the story of Bella Baxter not too long ago Bella was another woman named Victoria blessington who after committing suicide was rescued by The Mad s Godwin Baxter and had the brain of her unborn baby implanted into her body as Bella's intellect rapidly increases she becomes more and more curious about life the world around her and herself in particular her sexuality initially betrothed to Godwin's assistant Max Bella instead runs away with a similarly debauched Duncan charting her on a path of sexually charged self-discovery poor things Effectiveness as a study in female empowerment rests largely on how much you buy to the premise that a woman's soul is in her vagina Bella's Globe trotting journey of self-actualization her breaking the chains of patriarchal oppression is tied almost entirely to her orgasm that in itself isn't necessarily a bad premise a film about a woman having sex and liking it isn't the problem the problem is that poor things goes one step further by making Bella's instant gratification the entire Center of her Universe it presents a moral framework where maturity Enlightenment and liberation are a simple process of discovering and pursuing what you want no matter the collateral damage you might inflict on others along the way it's a moral framework where the social or personal injustices of the past can be remedied in the cold self-indulgences of the present one question that arises over the course of poor things but which the film never really touches on is to what extent are we to consider Bella as a consenting party in all her love affairs while the film seems to suggest Bella as the primary author of her sexual life Bella is also introduced as having the brain of a literal baby while the film seems to suggest Bella's sexuality as an Avenue for personal autonomy it also leaves it vague as to what comparable mental age Bella is supposed to be at any one point in time and all while playing her emotional and intellectual stunting for Laughs this has some weird implications to say the least but it's strange how little the film dwells on it is the audience meant to question Bella's autonomy are to infer some notion that all men are rapists under the patriarchy good or at least interesting art is often complex and leaves room for different interpretations interpretations that are sometimes in complete conflict with one another I don't think art necessarily has any sort of Duty to moral Clarity and I know that the morality of a character and the decisions they make is not necessarily reflective of a belief of the artist or of the narrative as a whole you could watch poor things and your takeaway could be well it's complicated you could watch poor things and like some people have done with the Barbie movie reinterpret it as some sort of secretly based anti- feminist messaging when an artist like yorgos Laos cultivates a certain amount of prestige I think it then creates a certain expectation on the viewer to come up with all these caveats to invent all these excuses to strain a broken piece of art into working again or to confirm it to our preferred morality I think sometimes both artists and audience gravitate towards ambiguity as a mask to preserve the ideal of the art and the artist rather than as an invitation to collaborate or present any real sense of complication for me though I don't think poor things is much more than it presents itself to be I think poor things is a sincere attempt at feminist affirmational that falls flat on its face poor things often reminded me of the films of Woody Allen and his preoccupation with the Romantic lives of young women paired with older men to be clear I'm not extending any comparison between Woody Alan and yorgos Salos to their personal lives I'm only saying there are some overlapping themes and ideas between poor things and something like say Manhattan but okay let's put all that aside let's not take the film so literally let's relegate all that to the realm of metaphor and interpret Bella's Journey as more that of a space alien discovering Earth and human beings for the first time David Bowie and the man who fell to Earth even then I don't think the movie is any less morally confused as over the course of a film Bella's hedonistic ID is transformed into feminist individualist virtue when Bella runs away from Max to have sex with Mark Ruffo only to fool around on him behind his back and send him into a tail spin all of that is more or less understandable ruffalo's character isn't the most sympathetic he and Bella enter into their relationship purely on the basis of sex only for him to develop more of an unreciprocated infatuation Bella meanwhile is still presented as being emotionally and intellectually stunted and so if she does cross the perfectly reasonable boundary of not letting some other guy go down on her we can chalk it up more to ignorance than any sort of intentional cruelty in some sense we have two equally immature impulse-driven people both with different wants and needs moving in different directions and neither treating the other very well however watching Bella apply an analytical sort of lens to these experiences watching her grow and mature over the course of the film I as a normal person assume part of the lesson here is going to be compromise one of the Hallmarks of maturity is compromise a mature person having experienced what Bella has if she were to lend the same respect to her romantic or sexual partners that she desired for herself might make the compromise of not other guys or at least giving some sort of heads up before doing so Mark Ruffo meanwhile though the story isn't about him might compromise in trying to be less controlling and allowing Bella to explore her own Pursuits instead Bella finds further Enlightenment in prostitution and it's here that whatever the film might be trying to say about sexual Liberation and by extension the entire notion of free willing sex positivity itself completely breaks down and that so much of it is dependent on the very modern luxury of moral luck Bella's worldview and the choices she makes concerning sex are barely ever challenged so that there's never even the opportunity of showing them as anything other than true or good the film does suggest some of the emotional on other people by way of Mark Ruffo going into a tail spin but on the whole it's played for laughs and the character is so over the toop that he's hard to sympathize with while working as a prostitute Bella never gets beaten or raped by any of her clients and all her sexual Escapade she never gets an STD and the question of whether or not she can still have children never gets brought up at the brothel Bella does express some displeasure at the men having their choice of the women and at the sexual undesirability of some of her clients beyond that that Bella's time as a prostitute is treated like she's a staff writer for vice dabbling in a bit of radical Chic for an article she's working on she even discovers the joys of lesbian sex and socialism hell yeah girl we are our own means of production we've arrived into the Reddit socialist polyamorous synchronicity never mind the women forced into prostitution the women who do it because they're desperate and they have no other choice in the feminist sex positive worldview sex work is seen as Liberation from the ills of capitalist patriarchy from a world in which women were historically prohibited from the workforce and financially beholden to men this sex positive worldview works well enough for people whose primary frame of reference for sex work is only fans models and used bathwater sales women but it strikes me as much less cut and dry for someone in Bella's position and in general less applicable to a less modernized definition of sex work I understand poor things is supposed to be a kind of surrealist fairy tale but all this examination of patriarchy and the pitfalls of polite society would probably have a lot more weight if Bella didn't also seem to inhabit a parallel universe where she already has the benefit of birth control and penicillin it's easy to create this parable of the immaculately self- emancipated woman when you completely ignore all the material conditions that even make those aspirations possible again I don't think the best way of watching a movie is necessarily to try and divine some sort of moral prescription from the Tex but when poor things consistently presents one point of view and then never challenges it in the most obvious ways this is where I go okay is the film actually meant to be some sort of secretly based satire of this modern notion of the morally lucky consequence-free girl Boss by the end Bella becomes a doctor for Christ's sake it's fine we can just handwave away the years of medical training she's a doctor now because she's a woman and women can do anything it's so silly you have to wonder is the moral of the story supposed to be that women who lead their lives like Bella are aoral sociopaths who if given the chance will rip out their enemies brains and subjugate them as animals on that note let's return to the idea of maturity and compromise This Time by way of the character Max at the end of the film Bella returns to Max they get married Max is very supportive even as Bella invites her former maybe even current lesbian lover to live with them again it's my opinion that one Hallmark of maturity of any healthy relationship is compromise and by this point in the film it appears that Max and Bella have arrived at one in this case the compromise seems to be that Max Mr Nice Guy will try to discard his primitive Victorian Notions about the Frailty of women will rid himself of any notion of women as some inert play thing put there purely for his self-esteem and his sexual enjoyment Bella meanwhile after returning from a whirlwind Adventure in which she gave out her body like it was free samples at the grocery store her compromise is that uh her compromise is that she will bestow Max with her presence I find myself merely jealous of the men's time with you rather than any moral aspersion against you it is your body bter yours to give freely gosh it sure is lucky that Max is so understanding it sure is lucky that Max has the exact same relationship standards as a Fat Sweaty Reddit mod in a Seattle polycule surely for most normal self-respecting people there's a happy medium between I'll try harder to respect your autonomy as a woman and yeah girl it's totally cool you can whatever what do I care what about Bella does Bella love Max has she ever loved anyone does love in the moral framework of poor things require a certain level of Detachment is the suggestion supposed to be that monogamy and Fidelity are just a function of patriarchal polite Society luckily for us poor things sidesteps those questions like it sidesteps so many others throughout the film before finally retrieving its brightly colored clothes from the headboard putting them back on and running off to another booty call leaving the viewer to marinate in a pool of mingled stinky sweat and wonder what all that loud Furious jumping had been for

Channel: Aaron Ward

Views: 4,310

Keywords: The Critical Drinker, Amanda the Jedi, Mark Kermode, Kermode and Mayo's Take, Fish Jelly Reviews, Chris Stuckmann, Jeremy Jahns, redlettermedia, Nerdrotic, Broey Deschanel, Disparu, Echo Chamberlain, woke Hollywood, Thomas Flight, Jessie Gender, Criterion, Angry Joe, Cinemassacre, EFAP, Comic Artist Pro Secrets, feminism, Mauler, Reaper, Mr. H Reviews, Film Threat

Id: c_yQhD6VLbA

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2024