A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this movie.
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Positive Messages
some
Promotes curiosity, compassion, and empathy, as well as self-determination, honest communication, and clear boundaries in relationships.
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Positive Role Models
some
Bella has an infant's brain in a woman's body, and she soaks up new knowledge: scientific, philosophical, anatomical, sexual, spiritual, and more. She develops and gives in to base desires, but she also learns about her place in the world, emotional connections, intimacy, and how individuals can make a difference to those around them. Godwin has a god complex, but he learns to love Bella and appreciate how she's much more than an experiment. Max is loyal, devoted, protective, but not possessive. Duncan is self-centered and jealous.
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Diverse Representations
very little
A few actors of color in supporting roles, including Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, and Suzy Bemba, but their race/ethnicity is incidental to the story. Despite her juvenile brain and initial imprisonment, Bella grows into a woman with agency over her own decisions, particularly about her body. Bella is exposed to poverty in Alexandria, Egypt; she sees dead brown babies from a distance.
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Violence & Scariness
a lot
Several gory scenes of surgeons (and Bella) cutting open cadavers or patients. A flashback shows how Godwin put an infant's brain in Bella's body. Godwin refers to the many experiments performed on his body, including one that turned him into a eunuch and another that left him unable to process digestion. Bella uses a knife to "play" with cadavers. She repeatedly plunges the knife in a dead body's eye sockets. Bella touches a woman servant's genital area without consent, misguidedly thinking she should help the maid feel good. The maid slaps her. Bella says she's going to punch a crying baby in the face and tries to approach him before being stopped. A character's violent, cruel nature is revealed when he points a gun at his servants, one of whom is wearing an arm sling; he also uses his trained dog to threaten people. One of Bella's lovers fights other men over her attentions. A character is shot and then falls. Chloroform is used to sedate people. Bella throws violent tantrums and smashes/destroys various items; she also bites someone's hand.
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Sex, Romance & Nudity
a lot
Frequent explicit sex scenes that always include partial nudity (and occasionally full-frontal) and various sexual positions/acts (some involving bondage or role playing). Bella becomes a sex worker at a Paris brothel; a montage shows her having sex with many different men, including an encounter in which a father brings his two tween/teen sons to watch him have sex as an instructional tool. As she discovers her sexuality, Bella masturbat*s and inserts items into her vagin*. She also discusses the mechanics and pleasure of sex on many occasions. There's also kissing and cuddling. Nonsexual nudity early in the movie: A doctor sees Bella's nightgown slip off her breast while she sleeps, and in another scene, Bella plays with a male cadaver's penis.
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Language
a lot
Frequent use of "f--k" and "f--king," and a few uses each of "c--t," "s--t," "ass," "bitch," "whor*," and more. "Jesus" and "God" as exclamations.
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Drinking, Drugs & Smoking
some
Adults often drink with meals and at taverns, occasionally to excess: wine, beer, hard liquor, co*cktails. People also smoke cigarettes.
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Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Poor Things is director Yorgos Lanthimos' sexually explicit adaptation of an award-winning Frankenstein-like novel by the late Alasdair Gray. Emma Stone stars as Bella Baxter, an unorthodox scientist and the reanimated creation of a surgeon. Expect many scenes with full-frontal and partial nudity and lots of fairly graphic sex—between couples, friends, and sex workers and their customers. Much of the movie's violence is medical, but that includes several gory, unsettling scenes of cadavers being dissected and (in Bella's case) stabbed for fun. Characters also fight, one man uses a gun to threaten his servants and spouse, people are shot and bitten, and a group of impoverished dead people, including babies, is glimpsed quickly. There's lots of strong language, with more than two dozen uses of "f--k" or "f--king," plus words like "c--t," "s--t," "ass," "Jesus" (as an exclamation), and "whor*." Like all of Lanthimos' movies, this one is likely to spark much debate and conversation—about feminism, sexual freedom, what it means to be human or a woman, and what marriage should be founded on, for starters. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
What's the Story?
Director Yorgos Lanthimos' (The Favourite, The Lobster) adaptation of Alasdair Gray's award-winning 1992 horror novel follows Victorian-era British surgeon/scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter's reanimated creation, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone). With the body of a young woman and the brain of an infant, Bella acts like a quickly developing toddler. Godwin (Willem Dafoe) tasks his surgical student, Max (Ramy Youssef), with observing everything Bella does. And as Bella—who has violent tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants—develops, it's clear that Max is developing feelings for her. But the clever and restless Bella wants freedom, so, despite her engagement to Max, she agrees to run away with Godwin's slick, smarmy attorney, Duncan (Mark Ruffalo), on a trip around Europe, where she begins an epic intellectual and sexual odyssey—learning about geography, philosophy, sexuality, and her purpose in life.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the amount of sex and nudity in Poor Things. Do you think it was necessary to the story? How is sexuality used as a vehicle for character development?
Discuss how issues of gender, sexuality, and class are addressed in the movie. What do you think of Bella as a character? Is she likable? Is she meant to be?
For those familiar with director Yorgos Lanthimos' other films: How does Poor Things stack up? Where would you rank it among his filmography?
What do you think about the more fantastical elements in Bella's journey? How is this a version of the classic Frankenstein story?
Does the movie make you want to read the book by Alasdair Gray that it's based on—or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which inspired it?
Movie Details
- In theaters: December 8, 2023
- Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe
- Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
- Inclusion Information: Female actors
- Studio: Fox Searchlight
- Genre: Romance
- Topics: Book Characters, Friendship, History, Science and Nature
- Character Strengths: Compassion, Curiosity, Empathy
- Run time: 141 minutes
- MPAA rating: R
- MPAA explanation: strong and pervasive sexual content, graphic nudity, disturbing material, gore, and language
- Award: Golden Globe
- Last updated: January 12, 2024
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