Poor Things (film)

Also Emma produced it.

Emma is a mum. Perhaps before making wild assumptions about her personal character you could have a ten second Google

I saw it for the 2nd time last night. What came across even more clearly was that Bella makes deliberate choices to do what she does.
She is never coerced, except when she gets in the box.
I strongly suspect that many posters haven't actually seen the film.

I read this thread yesterday and saw the film today.
I loved it and found the last 15 minutes uplifting.
Yes, maybe a little bit more sex than required, but everything amusing and poignant. Emma Stone was sublime. I accompanied two women, maybe about 30, en route to the car park at the end and they were on their third visit. They’d gone back to acknowledge the layers they’d missed and to pay homage to Bella’s astute assessment of society.
Sound track devilishly weird but haunting.
Favourite scene ‘London’

How is it a male fantasy when she coms out on top ( no pun intended)

I agree. There used to be jokes about playing disabled characters would get you an Oscar. Some of the roles that able bodied people took on they may have second thoughts about now.

If you look at other roles woman played in the past, the award winning ‘gritty’ ones -particularly involving sex - the actresses have looked back with unease about them now.

This is the same. It’s just dressed up artily.

Over time, I think the actors will have issues with this one too. Emma particularly if she decides to become a mum. And any if they ever have the unfortunate situation of caring for a close relative/friend with a brain disorder/injury/learning disability. Benefit of hindsight and the precarious of being an actor at the mercy of a male script adapter (who has only written the story from the viewpoint of a male narrator in the multi-narrated original male-written book) and a male director. It would have been a very different movie if more women were involved in the writing and directing but they are woefully scarce in the film industry.

It is a male fantasy.

I don't think it's the degree to which this film is "realistic" is what people find problematic. The debate is more around what it means and how it represents women.

I thought it was brilliant. It’s not meant to be realistic.The colours, the steam punk aesthetic. She was definitely not a baby when the sex scenes started. She matured very rapidly. The way she completely turned the tables on the Mark Ruffalo character. I found it a lot more feminist than Barbie.
It should definitely come with a warning though - I can completely understand why people would find it disturbing.

Exactly this. That whole post was excellent but that was the best point made. She'd either be a figure of repulsion or ridicule, or both.

Actually it’s just occurred to me that if you swap the sex of the protagonists the reaction would be different too. A beautiful young man having sex with unattractive people. Would that be seen as exploitation?

Absolutely @LongTermLurker.

One point that's really stuck with me from this thread is the PP who asked, would this film be as popular, and would it be touted as an exploration of female empowerment and autonomy if the protagonist was old, ugly, or obese? I'm quite certain the answer is no, and that many people would be repulsed by that version. And that's really so telling.

Yup.
ALL those words by all those people and nobody bothered to ask:
Even if she loves sex and is beautiful with no inhibition... she'd focus on the attractive blokes! Not the old smelly ones.

I'd asked upthread about whether the baby brained adult bodied central character was also incontinent to begin with as a baby would be. I was told there was a pee scene, but what about the less appealing aspects of toilet training? Were those covered in great detail - did the central character smear poo (deliberately or inadvertently) all over her living space? Did we see anyone cleaning it up endlessly? Or was it just the sex stuff that was explored?

I suspect I know the answer.

Yep. Funny how women's liberation always seems to work most successfully when it's also satisfying men's sexual appetites.

The Jess Cartner Morley one is jaw dropping: brothels are great, it's not the male gaze because they wear pink underwear, and big sleeves are empowering. (OK the last one originated with a costume designer who clearly knows fuck all about history, but JCM repeats it uncritically.)

I’ve read some of the pieces in the Guardian and imho it would appear that some reviewers believe (or would like to convince themselves that) if it weren’t for social conditioning women would shag any man at the drop of a hat all the time. I think we only need to look at the animal kingdom to see that isn’t the case.

I totally agree about Gray , never met the man but his appearances on tv etc give me the creeps, and so does his writing. I do like his paintings.

This is v good, lots of interesting viewpoints

There’s a piece in the Guardian. Zoe Williams’ take will surprise no one

This 100%. Thank you I was having trouble articulating this.

*pronounsbundlebundle · 16/01/2024 22:23

I hate the idea that it's a baby's brain. Unless that brain has been in her body for 16 years before she has sex it's paedophilia and rape.

The whole 'the brain matures in some ways faster than others' sounds like a really really tenuous argument for justifying the idea that children's brains can in some situations consent to sex. Is there any evidence this is what would happen? I doubt it a LOT.

Really dodgy MAP-like stuff. The brain develops as a whole and this is an extremely unappetising thought experiment by people who clearly like the idea of having sex with someone with a baby's brain and are dressing this up as art.

Quite a lot of red flags, no matter how nicely it's produced.*

They were very clear that her pace of development was very much more rapid that a normal persons would be, so she effectively grew up during the space of the movie - the hair growth was there to represent how quickly her brain was maturing. So by the time she was having sex, she was the equivalent of a young woman.

Agreed in principle, although it would be great if a few more of the controversial multimillion pound projects were, for example, radical feminist ones. The people made uncomfortable by this are women with experience of male exploitation and violence. It's not really challenging anything, or making people in power or who exploit others uncomfortable. TBH even the stuff that is supposed to go against the gradient often seems to reinforce it to me, e.g. revenge plots where we have to watch a lot of highly produced sexist or racist violence, but then it's all fine because the perpetrator gets murdered later on (usually with a lot less glamour and gratuitous gore than the initial crime).

Whenever I read these type of discussions I always think how fortunate we all are to live in a free society where actresses can play unusual or controversial roles, where films can be made that make us discuss uncomfortable subjects and we are all free to voice our opinions on whether the premise of a film is positive or not. Whether you like the film or not (I’ve not seen it), there is a place for these kind of films in a free society and it’s brilliant that they can exist and be discussed.