After seeing Poor Things in theater, I spent the train ride home trying to think of how would describe the film. Absurd, hilarious, erotic, grotesque, and beautiful are a few adjectives that I feel fit the film well. It does make it easier to think of it as female version of Frankenstein’s monster, at least at the onset of the film. The movie builds off that classic framework, but gives the protagonist, Bella Baxter, a greater capacity for learning. so we see several transformations over the course of the film.

Bella at the start is pretty much a toddler in an adult body. She has the temperament and mannerisms of a cave woman here, talking in fragmented sentences, and having little control of her motor skills. Some of my favorite parts were just seeing her in these nascent stages, trying to figure out her surroundings, and her curiosity to learn more. At one point, I realized she reminded me of Leeloo from The Fifth Element. Like her, she is pure, and innocent, and relies on base instincts, desiring mostly food, and sex. And there’s a lot of sex. The middle portion of the film is almost completely sexually-driven, and it’s not always pretty.

A lot of the humor in the film comes from Bella behaving outside of societal norms. Although it isn’t intentional on her part, It was rather fun, and refreshing seeing a character trying to live her best life, and not confined to doing everything the “correct” way. Bella is also quite a vulnerable character, so it was also sad at times seeing some of that innocence, and joy get tarnished as she is introduced to more of society’s harsher realities.

Emma Stone is extraordinary in the role. Because of how the character evolves over time, she essentially had to play multiple roles, and she handles it all so well. Like many of the male characters in the film, it was hard not to fall in love with her.. Opposite Stone for a lot of the film was Mark Ruffalo. He’s usually cast as a nice guy, so it was fun seeing him play such an unsavory character. Willem Dafoe also turns in another gem of a performance as the tragic creator of Bella. Margaret Qualley was sadly only in the film for around 3 to 4 minutes at most.

Visually, the film is pure eye candy at times. The first part of the film is in rich black and white, while th middle has the colors dialed up to 11. Seeing it in Dolby Cinema is definitely the way to go here if you can. The set designs were pretty incredible to look at, with so many intricate details in every frame. I’m not sure how to describe the different locales. Some parts early on looked like some sort of neo-Victorian setting, while others later felt more reminiscent of designs you’d find in a Terry Gilliam film, with perhaps a bit of the creativity, and charm from a Wes Anderson film. Even the background imagery for each Chapter title screen are dreamy and surreal works of art.

Towards the end, the movie goes in a direction I wasn’t expecting, and I didn’t particularly like these scenes, but I understand why they were necessary for the character. Overall though, this was a pretty entertaining, and stimulating film, driven by a strong performance from Stone.