看完影片，我个人最大的困惑莫过于结局换脑手术，即Alfie这副皮囊的归属。

我跟被搬运作者提到的想法一样。的确，更早些有个镜头，Alfie躺在手术台上，然后切到一旁的山羊。很有所谓“误导性”。可是很快，下一幕，Bella和Max依偎在Godwin身边，使他享受到了生命最后时刻的被陪伴。我认为这是非常充分，同时也是更合理、更明确、更所谓“结局友好”的暗示——God将取得Alfie年轻健康的身体，延续生命。被搬运的文中提到了一个更有趣的真相，将其形容为一种wonderful symmetry。

And isn’t there a sort of wonderful symmetry in Bella putting her father’s brain in the body of her biological father (Alfie is of course the father of the baby that is Bella’s brain)?

但没有。导演和原著作者都没有这样设计。

我并没有很成型的理解。可能是用更悲壮的结局去结束Godwin医生的使命，显得更悲剧，把他和父亲对于科学的追求展现的更畸形的同时，也更浪漫。

或者是为了完成Bella自己更独立的拓展，毕竟God是这世界上唯一纵容她去探索这个世界的人。但限制的边界并非自由的边界，恰恰相反，包容的边界才是——God病危，她带着困惑和愤怒，还是坚定地从巴黎回到God的实验室。God病逝后，Bella在这个世界才算是完全地再无牵挂。

我依然好奇其他人的讨论，甚至导演和原著的解释，仅仅翻到寥寥探讨

下面是搬运自Rosie Fletche呈现在DEN OF GEEK上的文章，名为Poor Things Ending: Why Didn’t Bella Choose God? The ending of Poor Things could have gone another way…

Poor Things Ending: Why Didn’t Bella Choose God?

It would have been a perfect circle. Willem Dafoe’s scientist Godwin Baxter finds the recently deceased body of suicide victim Victoria Blessington (Emma Stone) after she’s leapt from a bridge. Victoria is very pregnant and her unborn baby is not dead, so God transplants the infant’s brain into Victoria’s body, which he reanimates. He renames his creation Bella Baxter and watches her develop as a child in an adult’s body. Through the course of the film she travels, learns, and grows into the happy woman we see at the end.

Of course, the end of the film comes with a gag. Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott), the husband of the deceased Victoria, attempts to imprison Bella, drug her, and mutilate her genitals. But he’s defeated when Bella throws the chloroform-laced cocktail intended for her in Alfie’s face, causing him to shoot himself in the foot and pass out.

With medical skills and guidelines learned from God (who is on the verge of dying), and with help from Max (Ramy Youssef) and Toinette (Suzy Bemba), Bella transplants the brain of a goat into Alfie’s head. It’s a sweet revenge for her and for Victoria too.

But the film does appear to lead the audience toward a different ending before pulling the rug out from under us at the last minute. Bella has returned to God’s house from Marseilles because she has learned that he is dying. God’s body is failing him because of the horrendous experiments his father subjected him to, but unlike Victor Frankenstein (this is a Frankenstein tale of sorts), God has not abandoned his creature. He loves Bella and wants the best for her.

So why wouldn’t Bella transplant God’s brain into Alfie’s body? Because of the operations his father performed, God is aware he’s always been looked at as a monster. Wouldn’t Bella want to give him the gift of a young handsome body so he can know what it feels like to be accepted in society? And isn’t there a sort of wonderful symmetry in Bella putting her father’s brain in the body of her biological father (Alfie is of course the father of the baby that is Bella’s brain)?

There is no way Poor Things writer Tony McNamara and director Yorgos Lanthimos didn’t think of that, indeed the timing of God’s impending death, and the shot of Max and Bella holding God as he passes seems to be gently leading us to that conclusion. But no! Goat!

So what might have been the reason to go down the goat route?

Though keeping God alive in Alfie’s body might seem like a happy ending on face value, in the long run, it probably isn’t. By the end, Bella is her own woman. God’s laboratory is now Bella’s; she is the head of the household and she will run things differently.

Bella’s household is predominantly female. Felicity (Margaret Qualley), the child of the family, is making steady progress, managing to play catch with Miss Prim (Vicki Pepperdine). Bella calls for afternoon gin for all, while the Alfie-goat snuffles around the garden. This is not a space for a patriarch. Max is the only male presence and he is the very definition of an ally by this point. He accepts Bella’s choices, has no problem at all with the sex work she did or that she went off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), and still wished to marry her. He also once again respects her wishes when she decides to learn more about Alfie, Victoria’s husband, who crashes her wedding. Keeping God alive as the head of the household wouldn’t have had the same impact.

Then there are God’s wishes. He pointedly explains that saving Victoria’s life, after she had chosen to end it, would not be his place. God’s life and work is shaped by his experiences, terrible though they have been. Would God really want to live an additional life in a body not his own? Perhaps he’s happier to let his progeny forge her own way.

This is also a movie about cruelty, and Bella has discovered the inherent cruelty that is part of being a human. Saving God would be compassionate and an act of love but turning the abusive Alfie into a goat is a better punchline. Bella’s opted for control and chaos which suits her well.