Okay. The first time you had sex, you neither planned for a potential pregnancy by getting married, nor attempted to prevent it by using birth control, and then you didn’t worry afterwards about whether you might have gotten pregnant? Sure. There are lots of ways of being a woman. Lesbians rarely worry about whether they might accidentally make a baby, for instance. But i stand by my thought that “sexual awakening” in the vast majority of women is accompanied by thoughts and concerns of pregnancy. And it’s a pretty weird point to leave out in a story about a woman first having sex with lots of men.
You’re criticizing a surrealist film for not being realistic.
Maybe. 
But i think I’m also pointing out that it appears to be a film that reflects on the male experience using a woman as a lens, rather than a film that is about the female experience. At least that aspect of it does.
Again, Godwin may well have performed a hysterectomy when he removed the fetus and so never had to tell Bella about pregnancy (that’s well within expected for that character). It would never be an issue. Or, he simply didn’t tell Bella about the realities of sex (also well within expected for that character) and Bella had no reason to know those things on her own.
Since we never see Bella deal with menstruation either the movie simply ignored this (which would be a little odd since that would certainly have been of interest to Bella growing up) or we are meant to believe she simply cannot have children of her own.
That isn’t her first have sex. She had a single penetrative partner for a while.
Her being ignorant of things and becoming aware was also part of the plot.
I DO think her becoming aware of the risks of sexual activity would have been good to have in as part of that. And that maybe that would have been included by a female director.
What seems to have been lost in this thread is how damned funny the film is!
Emma Stone is already acknowledged as a comic actor, but her deadpan slapstick timing in this one is impeccable and she’s given some great lines that provide many “punctured pomposity” elements.
The other characters (especially “Gods” side comments about his upbringing) inject skewed comic moments. All of this made for some laugh out loud moments for me.
I think I’ve said this a bit upthread in various ways, but personally I wouldn’t argue that it is about the female experience … or the male experience. It is about the human experience, as lived within our social structures that institutionalize power dynamics and cruelty. The character’s positivity positively enrages some in face of that, and threatens others. The movie is in many ways both misanthropic and optimistic at the same time.
And I’d be very interested in hearing from others who saw the film if they agree or disagree, and from those who know more about how those themes do or do not mesh with the director’s previous works. I saw The Lobster and I see some overlap there?
I agree, I think Lanthimos uses the characters to make his point about humanity (particularly the shortcomings of men) and, at the same time, he has affection for almost all the characters, which shows.
Without, I hope, introducing too many spoilers, I thought The Lobster was much more misanthropic. All the characters were extremely constrained by the culture they were in, even the rebels. The ending, to me, seems downbeat and implies that there is no breaking free from the environment and culture they are embedded in. Poor Things is much more positive (in a black humored sort of way).
I agree. If there are villains in this movie it is the men. Even the woman who runs the whorehouse is (somewhat) nice compared to the men.
But, not all men are “bad” in the movie either.
I know you have no interest in seeing the film and you have shared the why, what it seems like to you from various discussions about it.
IF however you ever DO see it, maybe streaming someday out of curiosity, please do return and share if what you experienced watching it matched what your seems like impressions were.
I’m not saying they won’t match but I am curious.
I dislike like horror, and I’m not wild about weird. (Although i like surrealism in paintings.) So this film is REALLY not up my alley. And i don’t even watch that many movies.
Although I’ve already seen 3 since Christmas. So maybe I’m watching more.
Anyway, I’ll bow out, now. I certainly have nothing interesting to say at this point.
We saw it a couple night ago. I had no idea what to expect other than Emma Stone, in some interview or something, defended all the sex scenes as being necessary. There were quite a few lines that reminded me of Maggie Smith in Downton Abby. As in, laugh out loud funny. I’m an occasional user of cannabis and I’m not sure if I regret not imbibing before watching or am thankful that I didn’t. It was visually stunning and moved along at a good clip. I’d give it a solid 8.
Let’s say that there’s a person who has successfully architected the construction of several houses. She now takes on the task of designing a bridge. If she succeeds - despite no personal experience of such a labor - then good. If the bridge collapses, then she’s a failure. You judge based on the bridge, not based on the record and experiences of the architect prior to that point.
There are almost certainly lots of stories written by men, which feature female characters, where the reader would have difficulty finding anything to fault the writer for. When you can tell, the problem isn’t that the writer was male, it’s that you can tell.
Finally saw it yesterday. I agree with most of the takes here; that I loved the strangeness of it all, I still would have difficulty recommending it to anyone, and it was definitely funny in places. I like that a film this daring and odd was made.
Regarding all the sex, I’m more on the side of it being female-empowerment (it’s within a world where women are owned in one way or another, and women’s enjoyment of sex isn’t really a consideration). But I would agree that they could have cut a big chunk of that out, and they could have included something specific about STDs and pregnancy, sure.
If anything slightly squicked me out, it was when God made a second undead, and it’s once again an attractive woman, this time with a more vacant look. In that moment it did look a bit like sex toys.
Some more specific things:
-
On the fish-eye lens, I thought it may be a subtle background way of showing how odd the world looks to someone just beginning to see it. The same for the weird music and other elements.
I’m glad it wasn’t all fish-eye though, as when the camera moved I got motion-sickness. -
Why didn’t they put God’s brain into the General’s body? I thought it was what was so obviously going to happen that I can only guess it was meant to be a funny twist that instead they just used a goat?
In the book, is there some reason for this (i.e. that the cancer had spread to God’s brain)?
On the fish eye lens, if it wasn’t the intent I agree it still does have that impact.
I have not read the book but read in reviews that the ending was a major change. Since then I read this discussion of the major differences between the two.
To the questions you have: there was no going back to a sadistic ex in the book. No brain transfer at the end. Godwin dies.
For the movie I agree we were set up to assume God’s brain was going to get put into Alfie’s body.
The actual ending fits the narrative better though.
Her God dies and she lets it happen. It was time. They go on without their flawed God with her as the clear person in charge.
The sadistic Alfie ending up as a goat at her hands is how she has placed the badness of the world in a place, still existing but diminished and under her control to her mind?
Saw it. Regret seeing it completely.
Not remotely a comedy, dark or otherwise.
Just an egotistical sadist making a crappy film. I’m sorry, an “artiste”. With no sense of storytelling.
I wouldn’t rate this as zero-anythings.
I mean, Pink Flamingos is classy compared to this…
I think God had zero interest in sex. Perhaps he saw women as more…disposable(?). Not sure.
God says he’s incapable of sex due to <comically sadistic thing his father did to him>
I’m just talking about what things pinged my discomfort meter, I’m aware that God wasn’t making a sex bot. But the fact it was an attractive woman again, and with the particular expression that second actress went for, yeah meter pinged.
As I’ve already said elsewhere, I loved this movie and the creative strangeness of it was one of its strong points. I don’t think it’s going to win Best Picture but that’s mainly because of strong competition from Oppenheimer, otherwise I think it would have a real shot. Even so, I expect it to pull in at least a handful of the 11 Oscars it was nominated for.
As for the considerable number of sex scenes, it seemed to me to be very consistent with the spirit and general wacky quirkiness of the movie. Maybe a bit of a proclivity of Yorgos Lanthimos’s films, but it wasn’t gratuitous. What I did find somewhat amusing, though, is that one of them had to be cut for the UK release, which is unfortunate for Brits because it was pretty funny. It was the one where Bella, working in a brothel, is visited by a gentleman with his two young sons in tow.
The gentleman apparently feels that his sons are now old enough to learn about sex, and he wants them to learn by observing. Being good students, they not only dutifully observe, they take notes! It was hilarious! 
From what I’ve read, there was a risk that having children in a sex scene could run afoul of British law, so that bit was excised for the UK release.
Wait, is Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life cut in Britain?