Poor Things

Bella Baxter wakes up in a laboratory with a baby's brain and an adult woman's body. Thus begins *Poor Things*, the wildest comedy the British cinema has produced in years. It's not a movie: it's an experiment that mixes Frankenstein, the dark humor of Monty Python, and the aesthetic of a twisted Victorian tale to the grotesque.

Emma Stone doesn't act: she jumps into the void. Her portrayal of Bella—a being who discovers the world with the curiosity of a child and the libido of an adult—earned her the Oscar and the BAFTA, and it's no wonder. Every gesture, every look, seems chiseled. The rest of the cast (Willem Dafoe as the obsessive scientist, Mark Ruffalo as the seductive turn) don't lag behind, but Stone steals the show effortlessly. It's the kind of role that only appears once in a decade.

The film, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, plays with the absurd without falling into easy parody. There are scenes that leave you mouth open—like when Bella flees with a sailor on a ship full of prostitutes—and others that verge on the poetic, like her journey across Europe in search of "freedom". The humor is not laugh-out-loud, but those that make you let out a low "fuck". And the production design, with sets that look like they were taken from a feverish dream, would deserve a separate award.

Why does it work? Because it isn't afraid to be uncomfortable. Lanthimos doesn't soften anything: neither explicit sexuality, nor critique of machismo, nor satire of Victorian morality. It's a comedy that hurts, that entertains, and above all, doesn't resemble anything you've seen before. If you're looking for easy laughs, skip it. But if you want to laugh while your guts are being stirred, *Poor Things* is your film. That said: don't watch it with your grandma.

Lanthimos turns Frankenstein into a circus of flesh and freedom. Bella Baxter is the wildest character of the year: feminism, grotesque, and tenderness all in one frame. Brutal.

" Why do men always want to put me in a box? — Bella Baxter

" Morality is a prison invented by the weak to control the strong. — Duncan Wedderburn