We are back to movies, and more posts are coming on some I have seen of late. But I will start with Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthamos, and starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef and others. That’s because, only this morning, the featured a piece in which 14 “commentators” were asked for their view as to whether or not the movie was “a feminist masterpiece or an offensive male fantasy”. Although the majority of the respondents had mainly good things to say about the movie, views were as deeply divided as they have been among critics and the wider public.

For what it’s worth, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and the 2 hours 21 minutes didn’t seem to drag as the time has with other movies that I will be posting about. The design is stunning, the performances are magnificent (especially Emma Stone) and the story is often funny. But, like one reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes, I could anticipate that not everybody would like the movie, and that some would be deeply offended by it.

Nevertheless, I felt that the Guardian posed a false dichotomy in its headline. I would not consider the movie a feminist piece, in the sense of advocating for feminist issues. It is not even a fable in the sense that its primary purpose is to illustrate a moral precept. Rather, it is something of a cross between Frankenstein and Pygmalion (no, I am not the first to draw those comparisons). Above all, despite the putative settings (London, Lisbon, Alexandria, Paris), it is a steampunk fantasy. None of it was filmed on location, and the elaborate sets and costumes are fantastical caricatures of the places and the 19th century period they are supposed to represent. 

So it’s an exploration of what it is to have a child’s mind in an adult’s body. Yes, sex features prominently, and some criticise this. Personally, I think that, if the scenario were possible in real life, the discovery and exploration of sex would be a major preoccupation of the person in question, especially when she (or he) has not had time to learn any of the taboos associated with sex. So I don’t find this unconvincing or inappropriate.

If there was anything that was problematic it was the part that takes place in the Paris brothel. Even allowing for the fact that the entire movie is a caricature with no pretence to realism, this subject matter was not well treated. I have written a genre thriller where the main character is a sex worker and, in researching the story, I came to see how polarised views are on sex work, and how to address it. This movie does not help. The fantastical tone need not have been sacrificed to portray the more sordid, even gruesome, side of sex work, especially in those days, when syphilis was rime. Not only does Bella escape catching the disease, but it is not apparent that any of the other girls have suffered negative physical consequences. And, although I have learned that some women who engage in sex work make a free choice and certainly do not hate every minute of it, I also consider the idea that it is “empowering” is grossly simplistic and can be seen as men justifying prostitution.

But overall, my answer to the question as to whether the movie is a feminist masterpiece or an offensive male fantasy is…

…Neither. It’s just a good movie.