Principal photography took place in Hungary from August to December The film received critical acclaim and was released theatrically in the United States on December 8, , and in Ireland and the United Kingdom on January 12, , by Searchlight Pictures. In late-Victorian London , [ b ] the medical student Max McCandles is recruited by the mad scientist Godwin Baxter to record the behaviour of a strange, nearly mute woman living in Godwin's house.
Godwin reveals that her body is that of a woman who was pregnant and committed suicide by leaping off a bridge; Godwin replaced the woman's brain with that of the fetus , giving her an infant's mind, and named her Bella Baxter. As weeks pass, Bella's vocabulary improves and she exhibits childlike wonder at the world.
With Godwin's encouragement, Max falls in love with Bella and proposes marriage. Bella accepts, but soon discovers masturbation and sexual pleasure, leading her to run off with Duncan Wedderburn, a debauched lawyer, to Lisbon. There, they have near-constant intercourse as Bella lives purely for pleasure. She is mistakenly addressed as "Victoria Blessington" by a fellow hotel guest.
As Bella becomes difficult for Duncan to control, he smuggles her onto a cruise ship, where she befriends two passengers who open her mind to philosophy. Duncan attempts to stunt her growth to no avail, and indulges in drinking and gambling. During a stop at Alexandria , Bella witnesses the suffering of the poor and becomes distraught.
Wishing to help them, she entrusts Duncan's winnings to unscrupulous members of the crew, who falsely promise to give it to them.
