How does the film handle themes of freedom and feminism?

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Feminism & Autonomy

1. Birth of Selfhood Through Rebirth Bella Baxter starts literally reborn—with the brain of an unborn child—free from prior social conditioning. Her journey becomes foundationally feminist: identity isn't inherited or prescribed, it’s chosen and lived.

2. Bodily Autonomy & Sexual Agency The film foregrounds sex not just as desire, but as a site of power. Bella's sexual awakening—and her insistence on pleasure and consent—serves as resistance against Victorian purity norms and male control.

3. Liberation Through Resistance to Male Authority Nearly every major male character represents a different form of patriarchal control. Bella repeatedly rejects them—God Baxter’s scientific possessiveness, Wedderburn’s romantic/sexual expectations, Swiney’s exploit underclass-style oversight.

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Freedom & Identity

4. Tabula Rasa & Questioning Social Constructs Untethered by past conditioning, Bella moves through the world with childlike wonder, continually questioning social norms—class, gender, propriety—rather than accepting them. This clean slate stance amplifies the film’s critique of how identities are socially formed and constrained.

5. Rejection of Shame, Embrace of Voice One core theme is Bella’s transition from secrecy and suppression to boldness. Scenes at the brothel, for instance, aren’t indulgences—they’re moments where power dynamics are uncovered and resisted. Shame is systematically dismantled as Bella gains voice.

6. Freedom as Ongoing and Imperfect Critics point out that Bella’s path is not a clean arc. Her liberation comes with contradictions, failures, and moral ambiguities—sexual episodes that feel both liberating and discomfiting. The film doesn’t offer “empowerment” as a tidy achievement but as something continually negotiated.

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Tensions & Critiques

7. The “Born Sexy Yesterday” Debate Because Bella starts with the mind of an infant, her rapid sexual awakening has drawn criticism: is this trope demeaning? Some argue the film uses it as shorthand for innocence-to-rebellion; others feel it risks undermining her agency.

8. Exploitation vs. Choice The depiction of prostitution and brothels divides viewers: is Bella’s involvement empowerment or capitulation? Some see her as reclaiming sexual power, others argue the film fails to fully reckon with how exploitation persists inside “choice.”

9. Writing Feminism From a Male Director’s Perspective Some critiques question whether Bella’s story—especially with its focus on physical pleasure and visual spectacle—amounts more to titillation than radical feminist expression, particularly since it’s filtered through Lanthimos’s aesthetic lens.

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Symbolism & Visual Style

10. Steampunk/Victorian Backdrop as Oppression & Canvas The film’s settings—God Baxter’s laboratory, Victorian London, ship-bound travel—visualize rigid scientific, patriarchal, class-based hierarchies. But they also allow Bella to rupture expectations. The contrast between these claustrophobic spaces and wide-open seas or chaotic cities mirrors her growing freedom.

11. Frankenstein Reimagining Drawing from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Poor Things flips the narrative: instead of a monster shunned, we get a woman who embraces her otherness and uses it to question what humanity even means. Feminist critics emphasize that Bella isn’t a tragedy—she’s an experiment in radical freedom.

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Overall, Poor Things treats feminism not as doctrine but as exhilaration, turbulence, and revolution. The film argues that to be free is to be flawed, messy, desiring, vocal, and unafraid. The feminist vision here lies less in arriving at an ideal, more in demanding space to become.