Furious Jumping

By Brian McLoughlin

Poor Things is a Gothic, steampunk-infused absurdist comedy drama film that contains quite a bit of furious jumping. Furious jumping is a term coined by the film’s central character, Bella Baxter, a young woman made by God – God being Godwin Baxter, a brilliant and mad scientist. Godwin creates Bella by removing the brain of a brain-dying pregnant young woman, replacing it with her alive baby’s brain. The film is a spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Godwin (William Defoe) has the Frankenstein look; grotesque scars on his face and body resulting from his childhood experience as the subject of his father’s deranged scientific curiosity. Godwin doesn’t tell Bella her origin but allows her to roam freely around his mansion, but not to go out.

Bella (marvellously played by Emma Stone) thirsts for adventure, however, and she grasps the opportunity offered by caddish lawyer and rake, Duncan Wedderburn, (a delicious over-the-top Mark Ruffalo) and ventures forth to Lisbon, Alexandria and Paris.

The film shows Bella’s rapidly accelerated growth in a shimmering fantastical glorious retrofuturist Victorian wonder world, complete with loads of fish-eye takes, shot by Irish cinematographer, Robbie Ryan. It’s in part an Irish film, as one of the producers is Element Pictures, Dublin, and it has been nominated for 11 Oscars; only Oppenheimer has more.

It’s a wild ride, emphasis equally on wild and ride. Yes, there is naked activity, or to use Bella’s term, furious jumping, and lots of it, and lots of talk on it – all hilarious. Is all this furious jumbling necessary, a friend of mine asked me? My reply is that ice-cream is not necessary but it is sure tasty, and how were you made. There’s a lightness of touch here, and I couldn’t help thinking that a more light hearted approach to discussing this issue with children would result in less dysfunctional attitudes around it afterwards. Imagine such a conversation: Child saying: ‘Mammy, how was I made?’ Mammy replying: ‘Darling, your daddy and I did furious jumping on the night of Storm Ophelia and nine months later, Voilà, you were born. That’s why we named you Ophelia.’

Greek director’s Yorgos Lanthimos’s back catalogue contains absurd dramas which use animals as metaphors; indeed three of his recent films are titled: Dogtooth, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Poor Things has distorted animals, the surreal: you get a pig’s head on chicken legs, a goose head on dog legs, a horse head drawing a carriage – you get the picture.

His films are about people being psychologically imprisoned by distorted, absurd, indeed insane rules and the suffering under them. The cry in his films could be expressed by the agonised line of Freddy Mercury: ‘I want to break free; God knows I want to break free.’ His films are dark with death and horror but Poor Things is different; Bella breaks far beyond the shackles of the men she meets and we see through her just how pathetic their worldview is – they are the poor things – imprisoned by made up absurd notions which they desperately cling to and blubber on.

I saw it twice in the Omniplex Cinema, Mullingar; the second time the couple behind me laughed, and it was laugh-out-loud. Poor Things is not for everyone, and though I may be sad and probably weird, I can’t think of anywhere I would rather spend 140 minutes.

Brian McLoughlin is a member of Inklings Writing Group, who meet on Tuesdays at 10.50am in Annebrook House Hotel.