To think that Poor Things is actually a seriously fucked up film?

[AngeloMysterioso]

Spoilers obvs

Basic plot summary- pregnant woman trapped in an abusive marriage attempts suicide by jumping from a bridge. Frankenstein-type scientist retrieves her body, transplants the unborn baby’s brain into her head and brings her back to life. This child-woman is then basically abducted by a dodgy bloke who teaches her all about the joys of fucking, she very naively gives all their money away and because they are now broke and she enjoys sex so very much, she becomes a prostitute, whilst still having the mental age of a young child.

There’s no denying Emma Stone is brilliant in the role, but AIBU to think that it is otherwise one completely messed up Freudian nightmare of a movie?!

Surely the condemnation is implicit? Not up to the film to point that out. Do we need to be spoon-fed and then left with a disclaimer at the end that this isn’t the way women should be treated. The film is set in the 1900s, a different set of standards, morals and women were treated appallingly but I would argue Bella finds her voice and changes her circumstances for the better. It is Mark Ruffolo who ends up mad from obsession with Bella because he can not possess her in the way he wishes to, despite planning horrendous things it’s Bella’s ex husband ends up as a goat roaming around the garden. Even as a prostitute Bella attempts to fight the system and trying to implement some kind of union for workers rights. She is empowering herself against all difficulties despite living in a man’s world.

Exactly.

No one in Zone of Interest condemns what's going on next door in Auschwitz so clearly it's a film in support of the Holocaust, right?

I'm an hour and a half into it. I like it. I find the way Duncan is treated is very funny. There is a lot more to this film than just sex. I'm off to finish the rest.

Finished it.

I have always known I couldn't sleep with men (especially men who I found revolving) for money and the film confirmed this.

However I loved loved loved the film.

It's great ❤️

Having read some of this thread I was fully expecting to hate this film, but it was incredible.

In ZOI a woman tries on the fur coat of a woman she may have known who is now being tortured behind the walls of Auschwitz. The mother of this woman disappears in the night because she cannot bear to hear the reality of said torture; A man tries to scrub himself and his kids clean after discovering a fragment of the remains of a murdered Jewish person in the idyllic waters in which they are swimming; the same man, the
chief official of Auschwitz, lauded for his efficiency in gassing Jewish people which he discusses in a matter of fact way with colleagues, attends a Nazi event and is so corrupted by his work that all he can think about is gassing fellow attendees, yet is also revolted by the world they have all created, resulting in a fit of retching that cannot expiate this unimaginably horrific inhumanity. This all juxtaposed with final images of current day Auschwitz museum which preserves the effects of Jewish inmates/victims - shoes, hair, prison uniforms - as a memorial to the murdered inmates.

you honestly think ZOI could ever be seen to condone the Holocaust? Such a comment doesn’t even work as irony.

The two films are incomparable. It is futile to attempt to do so.

It's so good, if I had read this thread before watching it, I would've got completely the wrong impression.

I did go to the film, expecting to hate it as well, based on things I've heard, but really loved it.

I wonder if all the people who object to it hated it, though. I loved the filmmaking and the appreciated its superlative production values whilst seriously questioning its deeper philosophies.

I think it is so healthy that women ask questions about what they see on screen - especially given that Hollywood is so male-centric and creates images of women which contribute to the world of everyday misogyny that surrounds us. I watched a wonderful documentary where a female director analysed the way the female body is shot in film after film so that the feminine is eroticised, decorative and passive compared to the shots of the male body. This visual representation is so normalised that we don’t even notice it but now that she has made me see it I can’t not see it.

@Ramalangadingdong 100% agree that it is, yes.

Sounds like a great doc.

Also, yes wouldn't have thought so, sure there would be a spectrum. Though it generally seems to have generated strong opinions both ways 😊

Like I said, you don’t need a disclaimer after every film that may or may not portray women in a questionable light. You have to make your own conclusions and judgements.I do think it’s great that it has got people talking and trying to unravel the deeper themes. Love it or hate it, it has certainly caused healthy debate, always a good thing.

Surely the condemnation is implicit?

How does the condemnation manifest?

It definately has! 😊

I'm not sure why you decided to spoil the film for others - particularly poignant scenes right at the end - on a thread not about it, where you are only proving your interpretation of things not explicitly but nonetheless effectively communicated.

I loved it.

Yes this was my take on it too really. IMO it was about the control men continually (attempt to) exert on women and their freedoms, whether through sex, marriage, wealth etc. I wished there was less nudity because I felt it made the tone and storyline more problematic and male gazey. And I kind of wished she didn't end up with the slightly wet assistant.

I started watching this again, hoping that some of the arguments on here might prove enlightening and help me to enjoy the film in a different way this time round. But nope, if anything the experience was worse on second viewing. The first time I saw the film I found Stone’s acting quite good, but this time round I found it incredibly annoying to have to watch some woman-baby stomping through the world making inane “discoveries”I found myself dreading yet another awful sex scene, especially during the brothel scenes where Bella is subjected to painful intercourse. People think you can just detach while watching stuff like that and intellectualise it away as artful critique of systemic abuse, meanwhile we have to sit through such abuse which is realistically represented. For women to have to sit through it is another kind of abuse albeit elegantly packaged.

I am going to watch through to the end in the hope that i missed something first time round.

For all these reasons and discussions above this is why the film is good, if anything else it creates debate. I loved it and it’s one of those films that will stay with me and change too.

You never get consent about films as we all have such different taste. I don’t think this has generated a response because it is so good I think it has generated a response because it is controversial. While the two aren’t mutually exclusive neither does it follow that there is a correlation.

Consensus

Could it be that both of those things are true?

I think so.