If this discussion had begun in English, its title would echo And God Created Woman, a nod to Roger Vadim’s 1956 film Et Dieu… créa la femme. The English phrasing suits the piece for two clear reasons. First, it honors the Brigitte Bardot character: a Riviera orphan who lives by her own rules, guided by her desires and largely immune to the era’s social pretensions. That same spirit drives Bella Baxter, the central figure in Poor Things (Poor Things, 2023). And second, there is historical truth: Dr. Godwin Baxter is the literal architect of Bella’s being, resurrecting her from the corpse of a 25-year-old suicide victim. Baxter, unlike Frankenstein, does not assemble a patchwork from disparate parts. He replaces Bella’s brain with a newborn’s, effectively granting her life in a wholly original way.
The remarkable narrative of Bella Baxter arrives through Alasdair Gray’s Poor Creatures, published in 1992 and subtitled Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandles MD, Chief Public Health Officer for Scotland. The book weaves a self-made mythology: in the 1970s, the historian Michael Donnelly uncovered McCandles’ manuscript and related documents discarded in a Glasgow box on a central platform. Donnelly, a friend of Gray, suggested tidying the material for publication. If one stays with the play’s frame, the book presents a history told in the first person by Archibald McCandles, interlaced with anatomical drawings from a doctor’s hand, portraits, and letters from other characters.
Pleasure, joy and power
This is the chronicle of a scientific and surgical prodigy: Dr. Godwin Baxter, a Scottish surgeon, conducts animal experiments until he breathes life into Bella in 1881. By preserving her vital functions after suicide and reworking her brain, he creates his most ambitious work. Bella emerges as a woman newly formed in the world, free from cultural or social stigma, while the lessons she absorbs come from a mentor who guides her with broad, unshackled thinking. She learns to nourish her mind through expansive experiences and intuitive discovery. Gradually the brain aligns with her body, and Bella discovers her identity as a woman, finding pleasure, joy, and power in sexuality. The era’s norms feel violated, almost offensive, as Lucretius’ ancient reflections remind readers that women were often seen as passive players, while Bella asserts agency. Dr. Prickett’s observations echo those outdated beliefs, yet Bella refuses to conform. Then Yorgos Lanthimos enters the stage.
Expressionism, Lynch, Fellini…
During the making of The Favourite (2018), Lanthimos recognized the depth of Gray’s novel and told Tony McNamara, the screenwriter, that Poor Creatures could become his next adaptation. While crafting the script, the approach shifts; Bella steps forward as the central subject, and her experiences shape the story. McNamara simplifies the source material, delivering a road-like odyssey with a newly perceptive Bella, portrayed by Emma Stone, roaming with an unguarded curiosity. Her awakening becomes a voyage of self-discovery and an ascent in appetite and perception, marked by bold, sometimes reckless leaps that illuminate her growth.
Lanthimos frames the film as the start of a baroque era where production design holds sway. The project sits at the crossroads of expressionist cinema—evoking Caligari and Metropolis—while nodding to institutional cinema in the vein of Cronenberg and Lynch. It leans into retro-futurism where Gaudi and Victor Horta’s organic forms meet Max Ernst’s surrealism. When viewed through wide-angle lenses, the film becomes a visual banquet: from stark black-and-white to saturated skies and interiors. The voyage with Bella and her companion, young Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), seems deliberately fantastical, yet the rules of the cinematic world feel coherent and immersive. Lanthimos’ direction defines a distinctive narrative and visual universe, while Bella’s wardrobe, crafted by Holly Waddington, mirrors her evolution. Garments with pronounced shoulder silhouettes, ribcage-inspired silhouettes for volume, and clothing that reads like anatomy become visual motifs that track her transformation.
Despite the oddities, the creatures on screen feel like living organisms—unyielding, sometimes unruly, yet never dull. Lanthimos does not shy away from his critique of society, gender, and power; he remains focused on what he wishes to convey and what he wants to satirize. Bella’s redemption unfolds through an unapologetic surge of authentic desire, a force that is both chaotic and undeniable. The journey can be wild, enigmatic, or exuberant, but it remains unmistakably a women-centered story that justifies its own provocative energy.