Fleabag (2016) | Poor Things (2023)

POOR THINGS (2023) + Letterboxd Reviews

What makes Poor Things so ultimately triumphant for me is the way that Bella Baxter is, despite it all, her own creation. She came into the world in an experiment that violated the autonomy of both Victoria before her and Bella herself, but she steps beyond the parameters of the experiment and into the world, to learn from it. The intentions of men may be to possess her or use her or take joy in despoiling her vulnerability, but their intentions do not determine her experiences. She decides. She explores. She looks at a world full of sorrow that could render her helpless and chooses instead to do what she can about it and then sleep easy at night. She listens to the call of her curiosity before all else, her happiness second, her compassion third. The family that she makes for herself in the end is unconventional, but it's ultimately hers and allows her to flourish as a doctor with an experimental nature and a heart of patinaed silver.

And I don't think it could be that particular kind of triumphant if the movie wasn't so fucked up.

Poor Things (2023) dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

i wish you guys lived inside my head the fics in here go crazy

if you try to run me through with your blade i'll just pull it in deeper until we're face to face and kiss you on the mouth. with tongue.

i have spent a few days listening to the music you like. you have a tattoo of the band's logo on your ribs. you got it when you were still kind of a kid. my first tattoo was a bird instead. i did the math - we got our first tattoos in the same calendar year. isn't that kind of cool.

my mom loves hallmark movies, so i grew up thinking love would look like a firework. it feels like one, after all. it's just that my house wasn't safe. i thought love was a weapon, could be pointed at your eyes. could lose a finger to it, or teeth. my father used to say passion is everything. i thought that meant constant fighting was a good thing. i thought that meant love looked like a week of bickering, because it was worth the the weekend's boombox apology. i thought quiet love was boring. i thought love had to blot out everything, compel the body and the mind like puppetry. i thought love looks like ruining your own dinner table - but at least you set a feast.

but love looks like a scarf. your hands smoothing it down my chest, being sure each of the edges are tucked in, worried about my asthma attacks being cold-activated. i race you while i'm wearing heels, you hold my hand to guide me downhill while walking my dog. we dance in my living room to waltz of the flowers, i show you how to hold your arms in proper ballet port de bras. you write a song about looking out of my window while the snow falls. i ask you to text my friends back while i'm driving. you play dj in the front seat. somewhere on route 93, we start murmuring about secret things.

oh. there is a difference between peace and dispassion. it was never that i feared quiet, it's that i didn't know what safe felt like. i liked the chaos because it was familiar, not because it was kind. i think i used to fear the word wife. i didn't like the idea of long, lonely days and being yelled at for small things. i didn't like the idea of sacrificing my one beautiful life.

you meet my friends and make a point to learn things about them. we both get excited about the other person's passions. you read my book for hours, squinting at the small words. i try to understand basic guitar information. we talk for four hours on the phone while i string together a garland. we talk for six hours while you write a poem. i save a pintrest tip for the summer about making paper kites. i plan us a week-long trip to maine, map out my favorite places for an eventual hike. you fall asleep on the ride home, and i turn down the radio so it won't wake you up. your quiet hands fold over mine.

when i look up, the stars are brighter. how carefully you've woven gold into the corners of my life. when i move, i feel some part of my soul reflected back onto you.

oh, love is not a net. it's a blanket.

pasta is an antidepressant

You ever think supernatural creatures that consider humans potential prey have that "cat chases a bear up a tree"-thing? Like how bears, being an apex predator, have no concept of something that's sufficiently prey-sized deciding to attack instead of fleeing, and cats have no awareness of the fact that they can die. So every once in a while a cat and a bear come face to face in the wild for the first time. A bear doesn't understand what this creature is that isn't trying to flee, and starts sniffing. A cat doesn't understand what this creature is and decides to slap it. Utterly baffled, the bear decides it's best to get out of here. The cat starts chasing because obviously anything that flees is prey.

Imagine having an Entity in your home that eats creatures like you, but has never caught a human before. It doesn't understand why this prey isn't trying to escape, the human is clearly unnerved by sensing A Presence but still keeps stubbornly sitting on the couch watching TV. The Entity moves a piece of furniture, making an eerie creaking noise, planning to raise terror in its prey as a way of playing with its food. But instead of even turning to look towards the source of the sound, the human just yells into the empty house:

"WHATEVER THE FUCK JUST MADE THAT NOISE HAD BETTER FUCK OFF, OR START PAYING RENT."

The Entiry freezes in place, and decides that whatever is going on, it's not worth the risk to find out. Better leave while it still can.

Dinosaur Glasses // David White Glass

Romanticizing your life sounds so stupid but it will help you cope. Taking extra time to make a yummie coffee in the morning, sitting outide observing the wind in the trees, writing poems, going to old book stores, watching your childhood favourite movies, listening to romantic jazz, writing in a coffee shop, making sure you have moody lighting in your room, putting on asmr rooms as a background noise while you work. It's not a solution, but it makes things a bit better.

Dinosaur Glasses // David White Glass

i love you green. i love you forests. i love you smell of damp earth. i love you feeling before the storm breaks. i love you moss. i love you rivers. i love you streams. i love you thunderstorms. i love you sunlight shining through leaves.

fyodor dostoevsky (the brothers karamazov), charles bukowski (a vote for the gentle light)

Tommy Shelby in glasses just….

man i gotta shave again >::(