Under the Spotlight: Mark Ruffalo’s debauched brat portrayal in ‘Poor Things’
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things is absolutely rife with phenomenal performances, from Emma Stone’s mesmerising portrayal of the brought-back-to-life Bella Baxter to Willem Dafoe’s resurrecting scientist Godwin Baxter. But somehow, even despite such glorious instances of acting brilliance, Mark Ruffalo seemed to steal the show as the debauched lawyer Duncan Wedderburn.
Having grown up in a controlled environment sheltered from the true horrors of the world, Bella’s curiosity for a life of genuine experience sets the wheels in motion for the rest of the film, wheels that are kicked off their stays by Ruffalo’s Duncan. He arrives initially to arrange a wedding contract between Bella and Godwin’s assistant, Max McCandles, but ends up taking her for his own sensual satisfaction under the guise of showing Bella the wonders of the outside world.
Duncan is the kind of character that Ruffalo had no prior experience playing, having previously extended his talents to morally good guys in the likes of The Kids Are All Right, Foxcatcher, and Spotlight. So the chance for him to flex his performative muscles and dive deep into this truly debauched and awful man must have been quite the opportunity.
And it’s an opportunity that Ruffalo refused to waste. His vision of Duncan is gripping from the first moment we find him waiting for Bella in her wardrobe, immediately arousing her sexual interest. He possesses the kind of mysterious allure that would have Bella leave her domestic prison in pursuit of self-discovery, even if that journey initially occurred on a solely sense-based and superficial basis.
Ruffalo’s Duncan possesses the kind of unabated lust essential to his character, at least when he seems to be in control of the infantile Bella. He’s capable of fucking her in all manner of positions as though it were love and not mere lust that was driving him, and just as they settle back down into a non-sexual environment, he removes himself from any kind of emotional connection, having been caught up in that kind of thing so many times before.
And for that reason, we get a depiction of Duncan as a male manipulator. However, it’s only someone like Bella, who has not yet developed that strange adult dependency on others but rather is only defined by her endless curiosity for life and all its joys, who can turn the tables on Duncan. It’s at this point that Bella seems to be uninterested in Duncan emotionally, and he suddenly begins doting on her in a move of sheer hypocrisy.
This further shows Ruffalo’s ability to play a seemingly one-dimensional fuckboy with impressive nuance/ He quickly becomes an irritating posh boy brat who throws a tantrum whenever he can’t get his own way, declaring his love for Bella in fits of exuberant and desperate poeticism.
Ruffalo is undoubtedly hilarious in Poor Things, and it’s fair to say that most of the film’s funniest moments come from him either losing his shit at Bella’s unimpressed nature or his false and manipulative sense of suave high-mindedness. Even just the delivery of the word “cunt” with all its misogynistic connotations is enough to rouse an audience into laughter, clearly signifying Ruffalo’s talent in the cinema of the comedic kind.
He never seems off cue or out of place, always appearing in fits of controlled anxiety, bubbling with a relentless sense of narcissism and self-grandiosity, but more impressively, with the clarity of falsehood. Not only is Ruffalo apt in depicting the very worst traits of masculinity, but he also leaves enough gaps in his thin veneer for audiences to poke through to the little boy trapped inside his chauvinistic buffoonery.
Remarkably, Ruffalo had never actually done a period piece nor an accent prior to his performance in Poor Things, which makes his effort all the more commendable. While his accent can tend to border on the pantomime, it only serves to make Duncan all the more ludicrous, as though the character himself were persistently in a play about his own life.
Even alongside the masterful efforts of Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Ramy Youssef, Ruffalo can occasionally steal the show, and he’s well deserving of his Academy Award nomination. In making a swift career turn, Ruffalo has shown that he’s capable of portraying not only the moral good but also the heinous, selfish, and despicably sexually repugnant, and Poor Things might just be his best performance yet.
