Poor Things is a surreal Victorian-era chronicle. In its hallucinating interiors, awaits a weird universe of uneven folk. A child-like Bella Baxter in a full-grown female body, the brainchild of anatomist Godwin Baxter is the central showpiece. Her moods dominate her actions. You never know when her reanimated persona tweaks things around. A heavily pressed piano, thrown plates, self-indulging hands at a breakfast table, gliding on the roof...the vivacious Bella’s playtime is unpredictable. A bit scary and crazy beauty-innocence fusion. I was an Alice in Wonderland like Bella while watching it. As she confesses in the end to Godwin, Victoria Blessington, her former self seems somebody else’s. Her natural self is Bella who sets off to explore the world with a child’s virtue and curiosity. No precautions or prejudices come in the way of it. ‘You did not see me working on myself to get HAPPINESS did you’ –she reserves the right to throw her ‘plain’ questions to anybody who tries to domesticate her. When Bella runs away with Duncan Wedderburn, she expects he will rise to the occasion. She forgives herself and offers financial assistance for Duncan to return. That act of justice makes her an evolved human through self-earned exposure! She forgives him for abducting and caging her in a ship. Did the books extended to her by the new-found allies on the ship transform her so fast? She enjoys sex dismissing the idea of it. It could be her defeating spirit in the act. Could be its sheer pleasure in her body. To support herself and Duncan in Paris, that’s her happy option. How neatly Bella adapts its trade secrets and remains unprovoked to the term Whore. How tactfully naïve she is with her sadist and cruel husband. In a casual personal talk with Baxter’s assistant McCandles (Ramy Youssef), Bella easily spots a gem to get locked. True feminist thoughts here gave me goosebumps. Reflections of them are shredded across Poor Things. Who owns who? How’s a woman’s free will struggle in relationships, who sets the rules..learn all from the step-by-step evolution of Bella Baxter. What an assured Oscar for Emma Stone!