Starring: Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, Margaret Qualley, Kathryn Hunter
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Sci-fi romance directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Poor Things (2023) centers on Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) who is brought back to life by scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with slick and debauched lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), and travels across continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
Where to Watch:
Best Quotes
Dr. Godwin Baxter: Bella, this is Mr. McCandles.
Max McCandles: Hello, Bella.
Bella Baxter: [Bella punches McCandles in the face] Bud.
Dr. Godwin Baxter: Blood.
Bella Baxter: Bud.
Dr. Godwin Baxter: Blood!
Dr. Godwin Baxter: All my research had come to this moment. Fate had brought me a dead body, and a live infant. It was obvious.
Max McCandles: It was?
Dr. Godwin Baxter: Take the infant’s brain out and put it in the full-grown woman, reanimate her, and watch.
Dr. Godwin Baxter: My father took out my oxyntic and pyloric glands, so I must make my own gastric juices.
Max McCandles: Why in God’s name would he do that?
Dr. Godwin Baxter: To discover what no one knew. Turns out we need them. Ideally.
Dr. Godwin Baxter: I am a eunuch and can’t f*** her. To get a sexual response from my body would take the same amount of electricity as runs North London.
Dr. Godwin Baxter: Men’s, indeed all sexuality, is basically immoral.
Duncan Wedderburn: Do not care for polite society. It’s f***ing boring. Destroys one’s soul.
Bella Baxter: God not believe in soul.
Duncan Wedderburn: I think God’s the actual author of the soul idea.
Bella Baxter: Godwin Baxter?
Duncan Wedderburn: [to Bella] You are a prisoner and I aim to free you. Something in you, some hungry being, hungry for experience, freedom, touch. To see the unknown and know it.
Bella Baxter: I must set forth into waters.
Bella Baxter: I will marry Max, as he seems right for that. But first, I shall adventure on Duncan Wedderburn, who I think, cares little of damage to me, but will be interesting as well.
Dr. Godwin Baxter: I can’t let you go.
Bella Baxter: Kiss me and set me forth. If you do not, Bella’s insides shall turn rotten with hate.
Max McCandles: [referring to Bella] Why did you not stop her?
Dr. Godwin Baxter: She is a being of free will.
'It is the goal of all to improve, advance, progress, grow.' - Bella Baxter (Poor Things) Click To Tweet
Bella Baxter: Mrs. Prim said you were wolf with scent of hundred women on you.
Duncan Wedderburn: She undersells it.
Bella Baxter: [after having had sex with Duncan] Why do people not just do this all the time?
Duncan Wedderburn: [referring to sex] Men cannot keep coming back for more.
Bella Baxter: It is a physiological problem? A weakness in men?
Duncan Wedderburn: Well, Perhaps so.
Duncan Wedderburn: [to Bella] You’d be advised, if it’s not too late, not to fall in love with me. I have very little to offer in the way of constancy. Just adventure.
Bella Baxter: Explorer bloods in me.
Duncan Wedderburn: Bella, it’s dangerous to go out without me.
Bella Baxter: I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence. It is most charming.
Bella Baxter: [to Duncan] Now, I must lie down and you must lie down on top of me and do more furious jumping.
Duncan Wedderburn: [after she spits out her food] Bella!
Bella Baxter: What? Why keep it in my mouth if it is revolting?
Bella Baxter: [as a baby cries] I must go punch that baby.
Duncan Wedderburn: Bella. Your behavior is unconscionable. Will you behave?
Bella Baxter: The food was cacking my throat, the baby annoying, and the woman boring with words.
'Don't accept the lie of religion, socialism, capitalism. We are a f***ed species. Know it. Hope is smashable. Realism is not. Protect yourself with the truth.' - Harry Astle (Poor Things) Click To Tweet
Duncan Wedderburn: [to Bella] You will confine yourself to the following three phrases. “How marvelous! Delighted. And how do they make the pastry so crisp.” Yes?
Bella Baxter: Your sad face makes me discover angry feelings for you.
Duncan Wedderburn: Right. I have become the very thing I hate, a grasping succubus of a lover. I’ve pried many of them off me and now I’m it. F***!
Duncan Wedderburn: [to Bella] You, like me, are a creature of freedom in the moments.
Duncan Wedderburn: [as Bella keeps winking] What do you keep doing that for?
Bella Baxter: A man over there repeated blinks at me. I blink back. For polites, I think.
Duncan Wedderburn: [to Bella] What the f*** are you talking about? Who are you? You don’t know what bananas are, you’ve never heard of chess, and yet you know what “empirically” means.
Martha von Kurtzroc: As years have passed, what’s in between my ears is my big concern. What’s in between my legs much less so.
Harry Astley: A desperate rationalization, Martha.
Bella Baxter: This is Martha. She is my new friend who has not been f***ed in twenty years. Is that not astonishment? I hope you use your hand between your legs to keep yourself happy.
Bella Baxter: My hand has taken by another. It is a saying I heard, but did not understand. You do not take just the hand, but all, do you not?
Duncan Wedderburn: I’ll f***ing throw you overboard!
Bella Baxter: So you wish to marry me or kill me? Is that the proposal?
Duncan Wedderburn: You’re always reading now, Bella. You’re losing some of your adorable way of speaking.
Bella Baxter: I am a changingable feast, as are all of we.
'Money is its own form of sickness, and all the scarcity of it.' - Bella Baxter (Poor Things) Click To Tweet
Duncan Wedderburn: She’s going over the side.
Martha von Kurtzroc: Oh, marvelous! I never imagined being murdered. How dramatic.
Harry Astley: Well, she seems happy to die. I’m sorry for getting in your way.
Bella Baxter: You have made me think, cogitate, perambulate on ideas that are wrong, erroneous, and nonsensically annoying that lead me not to sleep. You say all are cruel. And I disagree, disavow, and say no not. But when with Duncan, the cruel just bubbles up in me.
Harry Astley: That shows good judgment. He is a pretty moron.
Bella Baxter: I’m so tired. Or maybe just my spirit is. My soul has been buckled, crumpled, flattened, Duncan Wedderburn, by the sights I have seen.