Poor Things Is Not Good! Book and Movie Comparison

when I found out he was the one directing this film I was like that's fantastic I'm going to love this movie he's going to do such a great job taking the parts from the book that I did enjoy and bring that to the screen I was wrong my name is Serena welcome back to the book to movie club today we are going to be talking about poor things which I know I'm a month late but that's because in the UK movies don't come out at the same time as in the United States which is a shame but I finally got to watch it and I have so many thoughts I did not think the movie could be any weirder than the book we'll get into both of them but I was wrong so let's talk about it before we get into the book let's talk a little bit about the author so poor things was written by Alexander gray I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly who is a Scottish or was a Scottish author and artist um a lot of his art is actually in in the book He's Illustrated part of it so some of the characters have been Illustrated and are in the book as well as very random body parts I don't know he wrote nine books between 1981 and 2007 his books are usually about Glasgow realism and fantasy but poor things was described as a magnificently brisk funny dirty brainy book by the London Review of Books which I would agree with I don't know if it's great the novel poor things won the wit bread award and the guardian fiction prize in 1992 the year it was published here's a quick synopsis of the book from story graph in the 1880s in Glasgow Scotland medical student archabald mandalis finds himself enchanted with the Intriguing creature known as Bella Baxter supposedly the product of the fish scientist Godwin Baxter Bella was resurrected from the soul for the sole purpose of fulfilling filling the whims of her benefactor as his desire turns to Obsession archbold's motives to free Bella are revealed to be as selfish as godwins who claims her body and soul just by the synopsis this sounds like a weird weird book and I've been doing this thing recently where I don't read the synopsis of a book before I read it I just Dive Right In and that's like I said that's what I did for this book and so I didn't know what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised by everything that happened in this book it is such a weird book but let me tell you a little bit more about it so the book opens the first chapter of the book that we're reading is an author explaining that how he came across this manuscript of mandal's story or relling of how he met and fell in love with Bella apparently this manuscript written by mandles was found somewhere by the author's friend who with the manuscript found a letter from Mandel's wife Bella letting us all know that everything in this manuscript is a lie but the man who ends up publishing the manuscript who is unnamed says that he's done all this research that proves that mandal's retelling of the situation is in fact true he doesn't have any evidence he doesn't provide any evidence to the publisher he doesn't even have the original manuscript that was found to give to the publisher so what is published is his writings about what was found in this manuscript that Bellis says or Victoria she has two names from her first life and second it's all very confusing but this book basically is what this unidentified author says mandles wrote in this Manu uscript anyway I don't know how to describe this book but it's up to you to decide if the manuscript is the truth if Victoria's letter is telling the truth who knows what's true and I think that question is the most interesting part of this book but the rest of it is a hot mess the original manuscript tells the story of how archal mandis mandalis I don't know how to pronounce his last name so I'm just going to refer to him candle but it tells the story of how candle met and fell in love with and eventually married Bella Baxter Bella was a woman who was found by Godwin Baxter after she attempted to take her own life I guess she kind of did um and was then brought back to life by Godwin Baxter by taking and stay with me here he took The Unborn fetus that was inside of bell axter she was N9 months pregnant when she died removed the brain from that baby and put it inside of Bella's brain as a result she had the brain development of a newborn child but was developing much more rapid than an infant would have so when candle first meets Bella she's walking around mumbling as if she is a toddler and somehow he's so enamored by her beauty that he wants to marry her make it make sense it doesn't I don't know candle proposes to Bella I think the second time they see each other but Godwin asks that they spend a little bit of time apart before they decide to get married it's supposed to be 2 weeks but Bella describes that for her two weeks feels like two years because she's developing so quickly so in this time she meets another man who's like hey marry me and they run off together and alope without actually being legally married but they go on this long European cruise for their honeymoon and in that time Godwin and candle received two letters one from the man and one from Bella describing the events that have taken place over the course of this honeymoon and this is my favorite part of the book I think this is the only part of the book that I was actually entertained by because comparing their two versions of what happened I think is is hilarious because it's a hot mess no matter which one you believe they're both a mess so this man that Bella elopes with says that Bella stole him for everything that he's worth left him penniless and in the mad house basically while Bella says that on their travels he becomes addicted to gambling and loses all of his money Bella gives him the last of her money that she had stashed away from Godwin in case of emergency and then has to become a sex worker in order to try and pay her way back to Scotland which is a mess when that doesn't actually work out she ends up going to one of Godwin's colleagues who she knows is in Paris and he pays for her trip back to Scotland and when that happens I was like why didn't she just do that in the first place I don't know in the book it describes that Bella wanted to finally have work experience she wanted to make a way for herself because she's been living under um Godwin for so long but it just seemed like an interesting choice in my opinion again everything is my opinion when she arrives back in Scotland Bella is ready to get married to Candle but of course it couldn't go off without a hitch when they get to the um Church her first husband is there with her father waiting to call this whole thing off waiting to object because she she is already legally married as Victoria blessington to this man whose name I don't remember I don't know Bella chooses to hear him out and try to understand more about the situation give Godwin a chance to explain herself and when she realizes the reason that she wanted to take her own life in the first place which is what got her in this situation with Godwin she realizes that a life with her first husband is not one that she wants to live and so she chooses to stick with Godwin and with candle and lives happily ever after basically um that is keeping it brief I think people really love this book and especially people from Glasgow I know it holds a very special place in their hearts because how much it represented as this quote says Glasgow at the time and a part of glasgow's cultural history and I think that's a beautiful thing to read about but that's not what the book is about and I don't really like the book I'm trying to put myself in the mindset of a person written in the time that this book was published but it was only 1992 and some of it just feels very misogynistic it feels like a description of a misogynistic male's fantasy of being with a childlike woman because it's this woman who has the brain of an infant but every man that she meets wants to marry her and I just don't get it I don't get it so I it's not Fort me and that's fine the book does talk a lot about politics at the time in Glasgow Scotland and around the world but in those parts when Bella is learning about the world it just drags on and it's a little too brainy for me and it's not very entertaining and I just wanted to skip paragraphs because I was like what are we doing let's move on this book is too strange for me to try to tell you anymore about and I think it is weird enough that I would I I I do recommend hesitantly I recommend that you read it just so you can experience how weird it is even if you've already seen the movie if you've seen the movie you know the movie is weird but they're not the same and so I think it is important to read the book so anyway let's get to the movie and we'll talk more about my comparison of the two those are my thoughts about the book but let's get into the movie which I am so mad that I sat through 2 hours and 21 minutes of this film when I only like the last five minutes if we're being honest the film was directed by yorgos Lanos whose name I'm probably butchering but he is a very he's an amazing director he's directed a lot of films that I've really enjoyed including the favorite and the killing of the Sacred deer which if you haven't watched that please go watch it when I found out he was the one directing this film I was like that's fantastic I'm going to love this movie he's going to do such a great job taking the parts from the book that I did enjoy and bringing that to the screen I was wrong I want to give a little bit of a shout out to the cinematographer Robbie Ryan because I think the cinematography is amazing the editors as well I think there's a lot that goes into making a movie look visually appealing I don't know what all those things are but I feel like I need to give a shout out to the cinematographer so there you go so before I watched this movie I had been I'd heard nothing but good things obviously at this point it's award-winning I think it won best comedy or musical at the Golden Globes Emma Stone has won an award for it and Mark Ruffalo I think I can't remember the Critics Choice Awards just happened so I'm not sure if they want any awards there but people have been loving it it has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and it's certified fresh I know some people it's like Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic usually has a lower score than Rotten Tomatoes but I like rotten tomatoes so I was like if it's certified fresh it's going to be good and I think on Metacritic it had like an 87 I can't remember but that feels high on Metacritic so I was like this must be good but how it got these ratings is beyond me because it's not a good movie sometimes I'll watch movies and think I'm the idiot like I don't get it everyone loves it so there must be something wrong with me but it took me finally going to my most trusted source which is the San Francisco Chronicle movie review section for me to realize and get the validation I needed that I am not alone this is not a good movie I'll have the full review from the S of Chronicle date book in the description but here is the first paragraph poor things is not as funny as it tries to be not as emotional as it is intended to be and not as wise as the filmmakers believe it to be it was made with ambitions to be provocative while it caters to its audiences already held beliefs the movie is not good and this is not the fault of the director in my opin opinion cuz the acting is great or like I said the cinematographer the bone I have to pick is with Tony MC mcnamar I don't know how to I'm sorry names are hard for me okay Tony mcnamar McNamara I don't know who wrote this screenplay this is a terrible screenplay he read this book and he was like you know which part we need to focus on the sex we all everything that takes place at this brothel let's make that an hour of the movie why why is it necessary to see Emma Stone having sex with every man in France there's one scene in particular that is completely it's not in the book it is not in the book and it's disturbing and I don't know if we're meant to laugh at inappropriate sexual scenes with children it's so bad and this is a spoiler but I'm just going to tell you so this whole thing has been a spoil aler Emma Stone is having sex with whoever she wants again she needs the money but she's also viewing it as an opportunity to have more sex she's like I've only had sex with one person this is my chance to see if he's really the best or if there's someone better one of the men that come into the brothel says that he's there to teach his sons how to have sex so there's two boys watching them do their thing and they're taking notes while they're doing it I'm looking around the theater like is everybody watching what I'm watching because this is disturbing I didn't like it so Tony you need to try again because this it's truly like I would be embarrassed and I would imagine that the author of this book Rip but I don't think he would have liked this interpretation it's really bad and that's more of what it feels like it feels like an interpretation of this book rather than an adaptation if that makes any sense because it's just how are you even more outlandish than the source material when the source material is weird as anyway I'm sorry I'm so mad that I watched this movie the casting was fantastic though I wish I had the casting director to give a shout out to um Jared carmichel was in it which I was happy to see but it wasn't his best acting if we're being honest and then Ramy ysf ysf Yousef who plays um candle in the film but is not he has not been in much of the publicity which I think is a real shame because the manuscript is about Bella but the book itself is about candle's experience with Bella and so he's just as much of a main character in this as Bella is but or should have been in my opinion but that wasn't showcased here or at least when it came to publicity it didn't seem like they viewed it that way which I think it's a shame one character who is such a big part of the book but is not in the movie is Glasgow and I like to think sometimes a place can also be a character that was obviously Glasgow was obviously a very big part of the book but they chose not to even base the film in Glasgow for whatever reason instead the film place in a hyper realistic London it it's you just have to this is the only picture that I can find online to show you of the sets in this movie they are very interesting but also really confusing because it's supposed to in the book it's 1880 but they've taken it into this kind of if 1880 was the future situation which looks nice but it's a weird choice so that's my opinion I think the weirdest part of the movie and the most disappointing part of the movie is how Bella discovers her sexuality one day she wakes up from being knocked out cold and just starts touching herself and I feel inappropriate I like whispered a little bit but she just starts touching herself and I'm like it doesn't there's no point sex is a big part of the book I don't want to deny that but it it comes up in a more natural way than in the movie and I think the movie at a certain point she masturbates one time and then she's at The Breakfast Table because she's still a child so of course she's doing inappropriate things but she takes an apple off of The Breakfast Table and starts masturbating with it make it make S why why would anyone do that it's so disturbing so yeah I hate it that part all in all this movie is really disappointing and I really hoped that it was going to be better there are so many parts like the whole book being a part of the movie is what I wanted including this author finding the manuscript and I wanted there to be some tension between the real Victoria and this author as to what parts of this story are true I think that would have been really interesting I was also very excited to see how they would show this difference in retellings of the honeymoon between Bella and the man that she elopes with but that doesn't happen and so I left feeling disappointed I left confused first and then disappointed those are my thoughts if you have different thoughts if you loved this movie let me know in the comments if you agree with me let me know in the comments because I need more validation on my opinion and and when it comes to which was better I think my answer is clear the book is way better than this movie this movie is garbage and it deserves to go in the trash and I think it's a shame because it just feels like the manuscript it being created and it getting all of these nominations just feels like a representation of the male whiteness in Hollywood and that's what they want to see and I don't so hopefully the next one will be better I don't know anyway thank you for watching my rant about how terrible the poor things movie is 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Channel: Book to Movie Club

Views: 7,880

Keywords: Por things, poor things review, poor things book review, poor things movie reveiw, poor things book and movie comparison, book to movie club, poor things is bad, poor things, poor things 2023, video essay, poor things movie review, poor things reaction, video essay pop culture, poor things movie scene, poor things golden globes, poor things movie, emma stone, mark ruffalo, ramy youssef, yorgos lanthimos, poor things movie explained

Id: sn0AijKLWPE

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2024