This movie had so much going for it. The cinematography, costuming, and sets are all so beautifully done. It is well casted and it would have made an amazing movie if not for the plot and sex scenes.

First of all, the plot is very lackluster. The concept of reanimating life has many different avenues one can take, as seen in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” and the way this film depicted the most boring and disgusting avenue possible is amazing.

Most of the characters are interesting. Godwin Baxter, played by Willem Dafoe, is not only interesting to look at, but he has a dark and interesting past. Bella Baxter, played by Emma Stone, the main character, is interesting and hilarious despite her circumstances.

I loved hating Duncan Wedderburn. The rest of the cast was quite enjoyable, except for Max McCandles, Bella’s fiance. Despite being a main character and narrator for half of the book, the movie is based on, he plays a minor role in the movie. He is boring and a pushover and the movie could have run its course without him.

This adaptation does a complete disservice to the book. The book tells Bella’s story both through McCandle’s and Bella’s perspective, but, more importantly it shares Bella’s opinion on McCandle’s retelling. Without Bella’s perspective, she has no agency in the story.

Bella is not a strong character. No matter how much the media tries to convince me she is a strong, independent woman, that is simply not true.

At this point, I cannot fully articulate my viewpoint without having to spoil parts of the movie.

For those who may not know,  Bella was created by taking the brain of a fetus and putting it in the body of a full-grown woman. This strips Bella of the “strong, independent woman” narrative Hollywood is trying to push.

She is a child in a grown woman’s body and that cannot be stated enough.

The movie and reviewers portray Bella running off with Duncan Wedderburn, played by Mark Ruffalo, as Bella taking a hold of her destiny and following her hunger for knowledge. In reality, it more accurately portrays a man grooming a girl and convincing her to run away from home.

“Poor Things” hammers home the latter when it gives us a sex scene between Wedderburn and Bella.

On the same note, there were far too many sex scenes, especially when you consider Bella has the brain development of a child for over half the movie.

When Bella starts having sex with Wedderburn, she is still referring to herself as “Bella” instead of using self-pronouns like “I” or “me.” This tells the audience that she is still mentally young.

She also still walks like a toddler. I don’t know how anyone can look at that and believe yes this woman is old enough to consent.

Later, Bella is coerced into prostitution. Bella is now old enough to be speaking in complete and grammatically correct sentences, but I doubt she fully understands the concept of consent or prostitution. This can be seen by the way she speaks. She still doesn’t fully understand social queues or faux pas despite having socialized with a variety of people in her travels.

My main problem with this movie is the lack of acknowledgment of the fact that Bella is mentally too young throughout the film to fully understand what she is getting into. They see a woman having lots of sex and believe it’s the story of a sexually liberated woman. For some reason, people equate sexual liberation with feminism.

This is not feminism, this is pedophelia with a budget.

It does not matter to me that Bella’s body is fully grown. If we set the age of consent at the age girls’ bodies stop developing, the age of consent would be fifteen to sixteen. The reason this is pedophilia is because Wedderburn is still attracted to this woman while she has child-like tendencies and does not have the mental capacity to understand what these men are doing to her.

If I could give this review a negative score I would. But because I can’t, I give “Poor Things” one out of five mustangs.