Poor Things' ending is absurd and positively triumphant (2024)

Poor Things spoilers follow

At the ending of Poor Things, a character sees his brain surgically replaced by a goat's brain. It's a happy ending, and not even the weirdest part of the movie.

Yorgos Lanthimos' latest Oscar-nominated movie (now available on Disney+) follows the journey of self-discovery of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), who is born (or created) in the strangest of circ*mstances — the ambitious surgeon Godwin (Willem Dafoe) decides to give a new life to the deceased body of a pregnant woman by inserting her fetus' brain into her head.

This bonkers premise leads to the creation of a free-spirited young woman who rapidly learns about the world around her and, most importantly, about her sexual desires. She pays no attention to the rules of polite society as she abandons Godwin's home and travels through Europe with the pathetic womaniser Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo).

She soon receives some distressing news, however, that will change the course of her horny adventure.

After dumping Duncan and settling in her Parisian life of socialism and prostitution, Bella receives a letter informing her of her creator/father Godwin's (Willem Dafoe) terminal illness, so she decides to travel back home to see him.

During that visit, she reconnects with Max (Ramy Youssef), who is still in love with her. He re-asks her to marry him, and Bella accepts.

However, their wedding is crashed by Duncan, who out of spite for his ex-lover has tracked down Victoria's husband, Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott), and has brought him along to ruin the happy occasion.

Alfie reveals Bella's previous identity as Victoria, and demands she returns home. Curious about her mother and eager to understand why she took her life while pregnant, Bella leaves Max at the altar to follow Alfie.

That's where Alisdair Gray's book ends, but Lanthimos' adaptation adds an extra couple of scenes that changes the whole mood of the story's conclusion.

"I knew it was darker than where we had been, so I was like, 'How do we keep the comedy? How do we keep it sort of unhinged and also make it feel emotional?'", screenwriter Tony McNamara explained in an interview with Collider.

"Then I came up with the idea of – it's not in the book – she never chooses to go back there, it's a different ending, but I was like, 'She should choose, because she's fearless, to go find out where it was.'

"So it was just, sort of, how do we make it odd and funny, like the rest of the movie, but in a slightly darker way so you're a bit unnerved by the whole thing? That was a tricky scene for me to wrangle, I guess."

So the movie continues.

At the Blessingtons' mansion, it's obvious very soon that Alfie is a terrible, cruel, narcissistic person. He tortures his servants and is planning to mutilate Bella's genitals to control her sexual desire.

Of course, Bella is not going to allow that to happen.

Alfie tries to give his wife-daughter chloroform to knock her out, but she reverses the situation and splashes the drink in his face. While he is unconscious, Bella performs a little surgery on him — she transplants a goat's brain into Alfie's head.

Following Godwin's death, Bella inherits his lab and mansion, as she gets ready to follow in his footsteps.

The last scene of Poor Things offers a triumphant image: Bella is seated on a comfy chair in the mansion's garden, a surgery book in one hand and a co*cktail in the other. A cheerful Max is with her, though the status of their relationship is not clear.

Her friend Toinette (Suzy Bemba), housekeeper Mrs Prim (Vicki Pepperdine) and her "sister" Felicity (Margaret Qualley) — God's last experiment trying to replicate Bella — enjoy the beautiful weather outdoors too, while the group's newest member, Alfie the goat, incessantly bleats in the background.

It's a perfect ending for Bella Baxter's journey in this movie, since it feels like a twisted happy ending for an equally twisted fairytale.

The conclusion had to work according to the movie's own mad rules, which means it needed to be unashamedly and delightfully absurd.

Of course, Bella's decisions might raise some eyebrows. After all, in her travels, she has learned about the cruelty of human societies — she was shocked at the sight of extreme poverty in Alexandria, which led her to give away Duncan's money and align with the socialist movement in Paris.

And yet, in that ending, she exhibits the same cruelty and control (even if, in Alfie's case, it was warranted), as she inherits without an ounce of remorse the legacy of the man that played God with her mother's body.

However, the only right way to understand Bella's choices is by following Poor Things' own moral compass. So please enjoy her victory with no regrets!

In fact, what makes the movie so compelling to watch is how easy it is to be in awe of Bella Baxter's fearlessness. The ending is infused by a fabulous feeling of hope and positivity for the future, and her undeterred drive to follow every instinct and desire.

"I think it came out of Bella," McNamara explained in an interview with Polygon.

"Being faithful to that character means you're ultimately faithful to an idea of this sort of optimism about life's adventure. There's kind of an uncynical approach to experience and what that brings you and [how it] shapes you.

And I think that's why it maybe inadvertently became more of a happy ending."

Poor Things is a story about a new-born woman discovering the world, and it's her infectious enthusiasm and innocence that has turned Bella into an unlikely, imperfect and yet extraordinary heroine.

Poor Things is now available on Disney+.