Emma Stone’s ‘Poor Things’ Sex Scenes Were “A Very Important Part of Her Journey,” According To Director Yorgos Lanthimos

If you’re someone who is angry about sex scenes in movies, then Yorgos Lanthimos’s dark comedy, Poor Things, definitely is not for you. But if you’re here for stylish, touching, and ultimately freeing portrayal of a young woman’s journey of self-discovery—which, yes, includes Emma Stone have lots of enthusiastic, energetic sex on screen—then you’re in for a treat.

At a press conference at the 61st New York Film Festival screening of Poor Things on Friday afternoon, Decider asked Lanthimos for his contribution to the seemingly never-ending discourse surrounding whether sex scenes are “necessary” in movies.

“The contribution is this,” Lanthimos responded, gesturing to the screen behind him. “[Sex] was a very important part of her journey. I felt that we shouldn’t shy away from it. It would feel very disingenuous to tell this story about this character, who’s so free and so open, and then be [a] prude about the sexual aspect of it.”

Lanthimos added that he knew from the start that sex would be a large part of the film, which he adapted from Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name. “It was clear from the beginning—from the novel, from the script, but also from discussions with Emma as well, how we came up with those scenes—she had to be free. There should be no judgment.”

For the uninitiated, Poor Things follows the story of Bella Baxter (Stone), a formerly dead woman resurrected by a macabre scientist (Willem Dafoe), who puts the brain of an infant baby in her head. As a result, Bella comes of age in the body of an already fully-grown woman. And when she meets a handsome buy smarmy lawyer (Mark Ruffalo) who sweeps her off her feet, well, they have a lot of sex. A lot of really great sex.

As Lanthimos concluded, learning about sex was no different than anything else Bella learns in the film. “The same way that everything else works in the film—the same way she learns about language, and human suffering, and love, and science, and politics—it’s the same way she should be equally free about sex, and anything else.”