Poor Things (2023)

Emma Stone: Bella Baxter

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Bella Baxter : [on the wailing infant]  I must go punch that baby.

• Bella Baxter : Why keep it in my mouth if it is revolting?

• Swiney : We must work. We must make money. But more than that Bella, we must experience everything. Not just the good, but degradation, horror, sadness. This makes us whole Bella, makes us people of substance. Not flighty, untouched children. Then we can know the world. And when we know the world, the world is ours.

  Bella Baxter : I want that.

  Swiney : Now go and fuck someone and bring me ten francs.

• Bella Baxter : I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence.

• Bella Baxter : This is Martha. She is my new friend who has not been fucked in twenty years! Is that not astonishment? I hope you use your hand between your legs to keep yourself happy?

• Bella Baxter : You are troubled?

  Duncan Wedderburn : Did he lie with you?

  Bella Baxter : No. We were against a wall.

  Duncan Wedderburn : Did you furious jump him?

  Bella Baxter : No. He just fast-licked my clitoris. I had the heat that needed release, so at my request it was.

  [Duncan bashes his head against the bar] 

  Bella Baxter : You too may tongue-play me. So I'm not understanding this complicated feeling.

  Duncan Wedderburn : [Sobs hysterically] 

  Bella Baxter : Are you now crying?

  Bella Baxter : [Bella pats Duncan awkwardly on the back]  What a confusing person you are, Duncan Wedderburn.

• Duncan Wedderburn : I will fucking throw you overboard!

  Bella Baxter : So you wish to marry me, or kill me? Is that the proposal?

• [after sex] 

  Bella Baxter : Why do people not just do this *all* the time?

  Duncan Wedderburn : [chuckles]  Well, at the risk of being immodest: You've just been thrice fucked by the very best. It's probable no other man will ever bring you to the raptures I have. I feel bad for you.

  Bella Baxter : Well, then it will just be *you* I do furious jumping with.

  Duncan Wedderburn : [chuckles]  Furious jumping? I love that.

  Bella Baxter : I'm rested. Let us go again.

  Duncan Wedderburn : Again? Unfortunately, even I have my limits. Men cannot keep coming back for more.

  Bella Baxter : It is a physiological problem? A weakness in men?

  Duncan Wedderburn : Mm... well... perhaps so. You'd be advised, if it's not too late, not to fall in love with me. I have very little to offer in the way of constancy. Just adventure.

  Bella Baxter : I see.

  Duncan Wedderburn : Let us sleep.

• Bella Baxter : My empathy is creeping towards what I would describe... a contemptuous rage.

• Bella Baxter : If I know the world I can improve it.

  Harry Astley : You can't. This is the real point. Don't accept the lie of religion, socialism, capitalism. We are a fucked species. Know it. Hope is smash-able, realism is not. Protect yourself with the truth.

  Bella Baxter : I realize what you are now Harry. Just a broken little boy who cannot bear the pain of the world.

  Harry Astley : I suppose so.

• Bella Baxter : Your sad face makes me discover angry feelings about you.

  Duncan Wedderburn : Right. I have become the very thing I hate. A grasping succubus of a lover. I've pried many of them off me. Now I'm it.

• Bella Baxter : I will leave at my leisure, but I am flattered by your desire to trap me.

• Bella Baxter : Hello, interesting older lady. I must touch your hair.

• Dr. Godwin Baxter : I cannot let you go.

  Bella Baxter : Kiss me and set me forth. If you do not, Bella's insides shall turn rotten with hate.

• Bella Baxter : A finger up the arse should help things along.

• Bella Baxter : More furious jumping!

• Duncan Wedderburn : You're always reading now, Bella. You're losing some of your adorable way of speaking.

  Bella Baxter : I am a changeable feast. As are all of we. Apparently according to Emerson, disagreed with by Harry.

• Bella Baxter : I'm so tired. Or maybe just my spirit is. My soul has been buckled, crumpled, flattened Duncan Wedderburn, by the sights I have seen.

  [Bella cries] 

• Duncan Wedderburn : Selfish, thoughtless, careless bitch.

  Bella Baxter : I am not thoughtless Duncan. More like, it is true my ability to think things through to the logical conclusion is not strong. I did help those suffering people. I have ruined us as you pointed out. But I do believe my actions came from a good place.

  Duncan Wedderburn : Shut the fuck up!

• Bella Baxter : Wouldn't you rather the women chose?

• Bella Baxter : We are all on a ship and cannot escape. And there is a world to enjoy, traverse, circumnavigate.

• Bella Baxter : Bella not safe with you, I think.

  Duncan Wedderburn : You are absolutely, not.

• Bella Baxter : *Bella is working as a prostitute. A male client has just arrived*: Madam Swiney, this lineup system... you really expect me to go upstairs with a man even if I find him distasteful... and therefore am sad when I let him furious-jump me?

  Swiney : That is the way it is, my darling. Gosh, you look pretty. How it agrees with you to be ravaged.

  Bella Baxter : *Speaking to the male client*: So, would you not prefer it if the women chose, as it would be a sign of enthusiasm toward you? You wouldn't have the vague sense that they're in a state of horror when you jump them.

  Swiney : *Madam Swiney and the client speak in French*: Bella is new and may have a mental illness. She doesn't yet understand how things work.

  Bella Baxter : As God, my father, says, it is only the way it is until we discover the new way it is, and then that is the way it is until we discover the new way it is, and so it goes until the world is no longer flat, electricity lights the night, and shoes are no longer tied with ribbons.

  Toinette : Je suis d'accord. As a socialist, I agree entirely. Magnifique.

  Swiney : Toinette, you have such a clever mouth. Monsieur Mersault will enjoy it for free. *Toinette's smile slowly fades*.

• Duncan Wedderburn : I shall throw her into the Ocean!

  Bella Baxter : I dare you!

• Duncan Wedderburn : You're whores.

  Bella Baxter : We are our own means of production. Go away.

• Bella Baxter : A love of cruelty? I was not a kind person, it seemed.

  Alfie Blessington : Kind? You would never be so dull, Victoria. Appalling idea.

• Bella Baxter : Ba. Ba. Ba.

  Dr. Godwin Baxter : Bye.

  Bella Baxter : Ba.

• Bella Baxter : It is the goal of all to improve, advance, progress, grow.

• Harry Astley : A lot of dead babies.

  Bella Baxter : [distraught]  We must go help them.

  Harry Astley : How will we do that? When we go down there, they'll quite rightfully rope us, rob us and rape us. And if they were here, and we were there, we'd do the same to them.

• Swiney : You are an idealist. Like me. How delightful you are. But we must give in to the demands of the world sometimes. Grapple with it. Try to defeat it.

  Bella Baxter : So you believe as me?

  Swiney : Of course. But some men enjoy that you do not like it.

  Bella Baxter : What? That is...

  Swiney : Sick. But good business.

• Duncan Wedderburn : Kitty, did you see the new show in London by Wilde? Marvelously witty!

  Kitty : I loved it. A handbag!

  [Bella spits her food] 

  Duncan Wedderburn : Bella?

  Bella Baxter : What? Why keep it in my mouth, if it is revolting?

  Kitty : I have said that before to Gerald. If you catch my drift.

  Duncan Wedderburn : You are wicked.

  Bella Baxter : Oh, because you mean his penis? Duncan's can sometimes be salty.

  Duncan Wedderburn : Good God, Bella.

• Bella Baxter : What of the tongue-play you were about to perform? Is that not happening?

• Bella Baxter : Madam Swiney, I have examined my situation. I need sex and money. I could take a lover, another Wedderburn who would keep me but may require an awful lot of attention. Or else it's twenty minutes at a time, and the rest of my day is free to study on the world and the improvement of it. Hence, I seek employment at your musty-smelling establishment of good time fornication.

• Bella Baxter : Let us touch each other's genetical pieces.

• Bella Baxter : I charge 30 Francs.

  Max McCandles : I think that's a bit low...

• Bella Baxter : What was the root of the unhappiness? What drove her off a bridge?

  Alfie Blessington : You hated the baby. You called "the monster".

  Bella Baxter : I see. I have noticed the lack of maternal instinct.

• Bella Baxter : I generally charge 30 francs.

  Max McCandles : That seems low.

• Duncan Wedderburn : Martha! She is the problem! I will throw that fucking perfumed bag of flesh overboard.

  Bella Baxter : I dare you.

  [Duncan storms toward the deck] 

  Harry Astley : Where are you going?

  Duncan Wedderburn : She's going over the side!

  Martha von Kurtzroc : Marvellous. I never imagined I'd be murdered. How dramatic!

• Bella Baxter : I feel like this conversation has become circular.

  Duncan Wedderburn : CUUUUUUNT!

• Swiney : You're my favorite!

  Bella Baxter : I've heard you say that to the others.

• Upper Class Woman : Victoria Blessington? I haven't seen you for years.

  Bella Baxter : And you still have not. As I'm Bella Baxter, strange feathered lady.

• Duncan Wedderburn : You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Will not lie, I've been with many.

  Bella Baxter : Missus Prim said you were wolf, with scent of a hundred women on you.

  Duncan Wedderburn : She undersells it. Okay, oysters have you had them before?

  Bella Baxter : I have not.

• Bella Baxter : Squish! Squish!

• Bella Baxter : Is that smell you?