Im kind of all over the place on this one, because on one hand, this is a gorgeous, funny movie. Practically StanCore, with great lines and some of my favorite actors trying their hardest and retardest.

On the other hand, the core is rotten. Its a very dumb movie. Dumb in ways that kind of eat at you on the way back home. It tries to use Bella to examine the stifling social mores and class stratification of the Victorian era, but how can any of these lessons really land when Bella herself is functionally bulletproof? She never worries about money, shes never in physical danger, everyone loves her no matter how many social mores she breaks. Were supposed to believe that the sailors are jerks for robbing her, or Duncan is a jerk for thinking it was dumb to just choose to be homeless in Paris, but theyre living in the real world! Theyre not constantly running into the nice pimp who gives her the nice job in the nice brothel with the nice johns and the nice whores who give her tea and between each lay. They dont go home to the forgiving father and fiancé with the estate and the inheritance. Its like an 1800s version of Common People.

Theres a scene in the movie where she lands in Alexandria (forgive me, Im not sure which one), and a character named Harry Astley, a black man said to be a cynic, shows her a pit full of miserable dying peasants in a slum. She spends days despairing, but later, once she recovers from her misery, he comes back to apologize, saying that he only showed it to her out of spite, and she responds, sympathetically, that he only acts the way he does because hes a a wounded little boy. Hes a black man in the 1800s. Hes seeing and going through real shit! You cant pass this off as judgement or wisdom! All she does in this movie is see conflict and hardship happen to other people and try to process it as her own!

Itd be fine if that was the movie; You Cant Say That White Baby, its definitely great at that. Or even the earlier stuff with Willem Dafoes Godwin Baxter being so brutally abused as a kid that hes become an unimaginably unfit father. The movie -only- fails at being more than this. In the last act, it almost finds itself running into its own contradictions; Bella returns to London, discovers the secrets of her origins, and is furious… for a scene. After which, she forgives her father, and her fiancée, who forgives her in turn for running out on him with another man in the first act of the movie. Freedom in Poor Things isnt actually growth or change, no, its the absence of conflict. Max McCandles ultimately proved he was worthy of loving Bella not by forgiving her or being open to her having other lovers, but by being willing to let go of her at the drop of a hat. Bella showed real growth in the movies eyes, by not caring that shed been betrayed and lied to.

The movie ultimately ends with Bella triumphant, surrounded with a family of sycophants and me with a big smile on my face. Yes, despite everything I just said this was still one of the funniest movies Id watched all year and Id gladly recommend it, but just dont do what I did and go into it thinking and shit. Itll just make your head hurt.