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MEDIA REVIEWSMEDIA REVIEWS
Review of Poor ings
Jess Maginity
Poor ings. Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. Searchlight Pictures, 2023.
Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor ings oers a rich eld of possibilities
for scholars of science ction, especially when considering the lm
alongside the novel from which it was adapted. Both are interested in
the question of perspective and narrative framing; both thoughtfully
interrogate the relationship between gender, power, and science; both
are engaged with the history of speculative genres and with gothic
tropes and Victorian scientic culture in particular. e lm would be
an interesting object of analysis for projects about the history of science
ction as a genre or a mode or the relationship between contemporary
science ction and history. In the classroom, looking at Poor ings
as an adaptation would provide the opportunity to think through the
aesthetic strategies each artist uses to convey similar thematic concerns
in dierent media, in particular the dierent toolkits that novels and lms have to shape narrative
around a distinct perspective or set of perspectives. It could work particularly well in a class
dedicated to adaptations of gothic ction, or even specically Frankenstein adaptations.
e story begins when mad scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Defoe) shes the corpse of
the pregnant Victoria Blessington from a river and implants the fetus’s brain into her skull. is
procedure creates Bella Baxter (Emma Stone). As Bella’s brain rapidly grows into its adult body,
we watch her learning how to be a person by following the scientic model of her father-gure,
which demands a radically open mind and a willingness to endure socially uncomfortable or
even physically painful experiences for the sake of knowledge. is is important as a gendered
commentary on the history of science, where women have been explicitly considered objects
of scientic inquiry and not its subjects. is scientic mindset oen sets her at odds with the
irrational patriarchal expectations of the men in her life who both love and seek to imprison her
to varying degrees, from the paternal imprisonment of Dr. Baxter to the ineective policing of
her social and sexual behavior by her lovers (Ramy Youssef and Mark Rualo) to the ultimately
murderous marital imprisonment of Ale Blessington (Christopher Abbott). e focus follows
Bella as she expands her world and experiences it freely in the face of all this attempted male
control and nally decides to follow in the footsteps of her more-or-less creator and become a
doctor herself.
e movie is adapted from the 1992 novel of the same name by Scottish author Alasdair Gray.
e crucial dierence between the two is perspective. In a self-conscious nod to a longstanding
146 • SFRA Review 54.3 • Summer 2024 SFRA Review 54.3 • Summer 2024 • 147
convention of the genre, the book channels its story through multiple levels of framing which
support or contradict each other on the authority derived from social standing, scientic
authority, and lived experience. Poor ings is “edited” by Alisdair Gray against the wishes of
the local historian he’s been working with and “written” by Archibald McCandless against the
wishes of his wife. e historian invoked in the introduction validates the perspective of Victoria
McCandless, whose aerword informs the reader (to the protestations of the “editor”) that the
entire story (whose events are essentially the same as those in the movie) consists of lies and
gross exaggerations. Essentially, Gray hints to his reader that the story is a male fantasy, gives
the reader said male fantasy, and then has the female protagonist inform the reader that this was
indeed a male fantasy. e formal structure interestingly mirrors that of its Romantic foremother:
the framing narrative (“editor” and “author”) is sympathetic with the scientist-creator while the
authorial framing is ultimately sympathetic with the “creation” by giving the “creation” a chance
to demonstrate that in fact she creates herself and to cast doubt on the self-importance of the
scientist gure (aerword).
e movie accomplishes the same critical orientation towards male scientic authority using
cinematic rather than structural techniques. Whereas the book questions science’s (and scientists’)
ability and inclination to liberate society from arbitrary or oppressive social protocols by
undercutting the pulpy, fantastical narrative framing, the movie is able to make the same critical
intervention while investing even more deeply in the fantastical by taking on the perspective of
Bella and using a set of tools unique to lm. Lanthimos explains that in the novel, “she’s basically
seen through other people’s eyes, and she’s described by other people” and in order to give the
driving narrative agency to Bella, the lm would need a world embellished from our own (Ari
Aster & Yorgos Lanthimos 24:31-25:17). e evolution of the color palette over the course of
the lm, from its black and white beginning to its hypersaturated middle to its photorealistic
conclusion, and the elaborately constructed sets and painted backdrops (inspired by the grand
painted backdrops of midcentury lms like e Red Shoes) are a mode of presenting the story
from Bella’s perspective. e lm’s sense of reality evolves with Bella’s.
e book asks its reader to think about the politics of gender, authority, and objectivity in
the context of science ction; the movie asks its viewer to think about the politics of gender,
power, and science in the construction of a self. As an adaptation, the movie participates in the
history of science ction as a political genre, a genre thinking about the place of science in society
and whether it makes us more or less free. As a standalone example of science ction cinema, it
modies and innovates cinematic conventions of gothic science ction, taking the potential of the
fantastic to deal with the human condition very seriously.
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Poor Things
146 • SFRA Review 54.3 • Summer 2024 SFRA Review 54.3 • Summer 2024 • 147
Works Cited
Ari Aster & Yorgos Lanthimos. Var iety, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXYD3UISwCs.
Gray, Alisdair. Poor ings. Mariner Books, 2023.
Jess Maginity (they, zi, he) is a PhD candidate at the University of Delaware. ey research
science ction (particularly in the twentieth and twenty-rst centuries, and particularly by either
marginalized or highly politicized authors), Indigenous studies, and Right-Wing Studies and
they teach classes about writing, literature, genre, and politics. eir dissertation project looks
comparatively at right-wing and American Indian speculative ction on the theme of violence and
civilization, highlighting the centrality of settler-colonialism to the continued are-up of global
(but particularly, American) right-wing extremism.
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Poor Things
