It's hard to know what to say about Poor Things, which earned a slew of film awards and nominations (including 11 Academy Awards nods) the year it was released. It's a strangely disturbing movie, one that's quite often repellent and yet difficult to look away from. It explores weighty topics and takes an unflinching look at the worst of humanity. It is, in some ways, a celebration of the id, even as it explores the development of ego and superego in unconventional settings.

At the beginning of the film, a young pregnant woman (Emma Stone) flings herself from a bridge in London in the late 1800s. She is found by Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), a horribly disfigured and emotionally distant scientist; she has died but the baby is alive inside her, and Godwin meticulously removes the baby's brain, transplants it into the woman and, in Frankenstein fashion, reanimates the corpse.

The woman, now known as Bella Baxter, has the mind of an infant, and Godwin studies her intellectual and emotional development in the contained space of his home. Eventually, needing more help than his housemaid can provide, he employs a young medical student, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), to help with the experiment. Bella, meanwhile, learns at an accelerated rate but is still very childlike in many aspects, throwing tantrums (and, sometimes, plates) without fear of consequence. She accidentally discovers the means of self-pleasure and, being ruled by id, begins to enjoy herself at every opportunity.

Max, eventually, falls in love with her. Godwin gives them permission to marry and summons a lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), to draw up certain legal contracts. Duncan also falls in love with her and carries her off to Lisbon and other points of interest in Europe. Bella, who deeply desires to learn and experience everything the world has to offer, revels in carnal pleasures while also discussing philosophy and soaking up culture. Eventually, she and Duncan fall apart -- I won't explain the path that leads them to separate, but let's just say that Duncan remains obsessed with her -- and she ends up working in a Paris brothel, both for the funds she requires and the pleasure and experience it provides. Eventually, she makes her way back to London, where ... well, things continue to happen.

I don't want to give everything away.

Based on a novel by Alasdair Gray and adapted for the screen by Tony McNamara, Poor Things is bewildering. It is frequently off-putting, at times downright disturbing, a feeling enhanced by the strange, awkward and often jarring music in Jerskin Fendrix's score.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos uses camera tricks to further the viewer's sense of disquiet, with odd angles, fisheye lenses and other techniques to skew the image on the screen. He also plays with color, starting the film briefly in startlingly vivid blues before reverting abruptly to a washed-out black and white. Color reappears gradually, but with more frequency (and increasingly garish), as Bella's infant brain develops.

Sometimes you will very much want to look away, but you probably won't.

Of course, if you really want to enhance your discomfort, keep reminding yourself that Bella, although a fully grown woman in appearance, is little more than a toddler based on the age of her brain. Granted, that brain learns remarkably quickly and she can pass fairly quickly as an adult in polite company, but Bella has a lot of sex in this movie, and there's always going to be an "ick" factor there.

Be warned, you will see a lot of Emma Stone in this movie. A lot. Surprisingly, it is often in unattractive circumstances.

That said, Stone does an absolutely amazing job of crafting Bella, a young woman with very few impulse controls. Her backstory is revealed very slowly, piecemeal. Her speech patterns, her movements, her lack of understanding of the world around her, all point to a person whose brain and body are not in sync, and Stone makes her quite believable.

The mad scientist of this story, ably played by Dafoe, was himself the victim of a great many brutal experiments at the hand of his father, the result of which left him grossly misshapen and mutilated. He bears no ill will toward his father, however, recognizing the deeds as necessary to the advancement of science.

Then you have Ruffalo portraying a brash, debauched, somewhat mad and certainly unstable lawyer who, while played very well by the actor, is at no time a character you would like to know. Youssef, on the other hand, plays admirably as the patient, long-suffering Max who finds himself living in an appalling menagerie of jigsaw creatures.

The menagerie, despite its horrific implications, is awfully cute.

Poor Things is a thought-provoking film, filled with absurdities, dark humor, grotesqueries, strange and offbeat characters and situations, and a shocking examination of the social mores of Victorian Europe. Ethical questions abound, but are rarely resolved. Viewers will at times be repulsed by what they see on the screen, but it's definitely a unique movie experience.

If you have a narrow mind or weak stomach, avoid this film. If you're willing to be stretched and challenged in sundry ways, you should probably give it a try.