January Jams Part 1: Poor Things & The Color Purple

All the movies seeking awards recognition are out in theatres, so it’s time to watch them and gear up for the Oscars. Here are two wildly different movies that feature wildly wonderful lead performances to kick off your New Year:

Poor Things: After giving us The Favourite, writer Tony McNamara and director Yorgos Lanthimos have teamed up again to give us this film adaptation of the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray. They’re also working with Emma Stone again, who delivers a remarkable performance that is destined for a nomination. She plays Bella Baxter, a sort of Frankenstein’d woman who has the brain of an infant courtesy of the creepy surgeon, Godwin Baxter (Willem Defoe, in a piece of perfect casting). Godwin is your classic mad scientist, obsessed with interspecies crossovers and pushing the limits of what the human body can endure. He enlists the help of Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), an eager young medical student who is fascinated by Godwin’s work and who agrees to track Bella’s progress to adulthood. 

Unfortunately, no one accounts for the arrival of Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a lusty lawyer who takes a fancy to the naive Bella. He convinces her to go away on an adventure with him and the two embark on a long journey where our heroine gets to explore her sexuality and discover the joys of female autonomy. This is a very funny but weird movie, one that is stylistically inventive and fascinating but terrifically odd in terms of content. 

Poor Things is enjoyable but I didn’t find it particularly profound. The most compelling things about it are the cinematography by Robbie Ryan, the dissonant score by Jerskin Fendrix, and the incredible way that Stone moves: she has this unsteady gait of a child who is just coming to terms with having limbs, and she truly delivers a remarkable performance, even if all the things she is being asked to do in this film are weird and raunchy as hell. If you are not into body horror, you might need to skip this film as aspects of it will make you squeamish. But if you are into funny and creepy vibes, this could be your next favourite film.

The Color Purple: Written by Marcus Gardley and directed by Blitz Bazawule, based on the 1982 novel by Alice Walker, as well as the subsequent film and musical adaptations that have taken place in the decades since, my views on this movie are very similar to my views on Poor Things. Namely, the movie is fine, but the real reason to watch is a standout performance from the lead actor, Fantasia Barrino, who plays Celie. 

I had never seen or read any version of The Color Purple prior to this movie so the story was completely new to me. Unfortunately, not new enough - I tend to have very little patience with narratives where women of color are exploited, abused, molested, etc. Which is immediately how this tale begins, in 1909 Georgia, with the teen Celie (played by Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) giving birth to her second child after her guardian impregnated her again, and then he takes the baby away from her. He then marries her off to Mister (Colman Domingo), a creepy man who already has three kids at home and needs a wife he can abuse and mostly treat as a maid. And oh yeah, Celie’s sister, Nettie, who is very intelligent and has big ambitions, is forced to run away when both their guardian and Mister separately try to assault her. Yeesh.

So that’s how we begin and what follows is a story of Celie facing a long life of abuse and neglect. But then she encounters some new women like Sofia and Shug (the magnificent Danielle Brooks and Taraji P. Henson) who have figured out how to live life on their own terms and not kowtow to the abusive men in their lives. Celie is initially bewildered by these women, and they are also bewildered by how Celie can be such a mouse who doesn’t hit back or demand more respect from Mister. It’s frustrating because while these women are good role models, they don’t really know how to help Celie, failing to recognize how a woman who has only known cruelty since she was a little girl might have no concept of her own self-worth and the right to seek better treatment. 

Nonetheless, I did find myself very moved at various stages of this film, and watching Celie gradually fight back and come into her own is an incredible thing to witness. I just didn’t want to watch her being treated so poorly to begin with. The ending is truly joyful and uplifting, and the movie does maintain a rousing tone throughout, thanks to it being a musical with some powerful songs that take place in some rather extraordinary and creative set pieces. It’s a novel visual spectacle, but I wish it didn’t tell such a tale as old as time.