Recently, we watched Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, and found that we thoroughly enjoyed it. Making comments about exploration of the world, sexuality and autonomy, the movie became quite the controversial topic. Receiving a wide range of reviews – especially on the movie review website Letterboxd.com – we decided to respond to some of these comments and share our opinions on them.

“I haven’t been this happy watching a film from start to finish in a very long time.” (Five Stars)

Excuse me…? I appreciate the enthusiasm for a movie that does have a relatively happy and satisfying end, but it took hours of uncomfortable plot to get there. Personally, I wasn’t smiling for MANY scenes. The happy and comical moments are there to be appreciated, but not at the expense of the scenes that are intended to be hard to watch.

“Everything i hate (r*pe, goryness, animal experiments, grooming, glorified child sexualisation, weird portrayal of a seemingly neurodivergent character?) wrapped in a bow of misogyny under the pretence of entertainment and making a grotesque point about humanity

Was not strong enough to get past the first 40 minutes, acting and steampunk sets were pretty nonetheless” (½ Star)

First of all: I hope that those are things that you hate. Secondly, if you would’ve watched past the 40 minutes that you “got past,” you would realize that it is in fact not about a neurodivergent character and that the gift wrapped in a “bow of misogyny” you found it to be goes far deeper than that. In fact, this review was extremely ignorant as they didn’t even watch the entire film, and completely missed the point of the movie, assuming that its “grotesque” aspects were there simply to be misogynistic.

“barbie (2023) but for mentally ill people” (Four and a Half Stars)

I am glad that they appreciated the movie, but unfortunately they are incorrect. As for many of the comments I’ve heard, they are either comparing it to Barbie’s feminist aspects, or saying that it is misogynistic – both of which are untrue. The movie included these “misogynistic” themes to show the extent to which women are taken advantage of in society, while the aspects of Bella having the ability and choice to become a sex worker were not meant to be a feminist statement.

“Forgot to review this. Not sure how this would ever empower me as a women, but ok. Literally a movie made by men trying to understand feminism and using r*pe to describe it?” (½ Star)

The goal of the movie was not to leave feeling empowered, or at least that’s not how I saw it. Yes, Bella did become empowered, but we aren’t supposed to entirely relate to her. The movie doesn’t have to be a perfect representation of feminism, it never promised that. Bella’s circumstances are so different than the average woman’s, obviously her journey to empowerment will reflect this. The r*pe is meant to make you uncomfortable and sorry as she hasn’t yet understood that part of the world, it is not there to empower you or Bella.

“Never felt so unbelievably uncomfortable watching a movie before – half a star for the aethetic i guess??” (½ Star)

Actually, that is the point! Glad that it had that effect on you, but unfortunately you missed that it was intentional! The “uncomfortable” aspects of the film are simply more methods used to contribute to its overall comment on society, further portraying an “uncomfortable” topic that needs to be addressed.