How far would you go to save, like, all of humanity? Would you, say, kidnap the celebrated CEO of a major biotech corporation who is an alien, according to your research* (*you watched some paranoid YouTube videos), in order to demand her people stop their experiments on our species? Do you have that in you? Do you?
Cuz that’s what downtrodden worker bee Teddy (Jesse Plemons: Civil War, Killers of the Flower Moon) triumphantly achieves in the grimly hilarious Bugonia, spiriting Michelle (Emma Stone: Battle of the Sexes, La La Land) from her sleekly minimalist domestic compound to his “headquarters of the human resistance” — that is, the basement of his ramshackle house — with the help of his hapless cousin, Donny (Aidan Delbis). They have to shave her head, naturally, so that she cannot contact her mothership (through the hair is how they communicate, as everyone in the know knows), but otherwise they treat her quite well, considering her crimes. Teddy and Donny even don suits, never mind how ill-fitting they might be, to negotiate with her. You know, to show respect.
Bugonia is the latest mindfuck from Yorgos Lanthimos; recent endeavors: 2024’s mad monstrosity Kinds of Kindness (also featuring Plemons and Stone) and 2003’s feminist Frankenstein fable Poor Things (for which Stone won an Oscar). It is also, somewhat ironically, his most accessible, most mainstream film yet. This is not a mark against it. Screenwriter Will Tracy, a former Onion writer adapting Korean filmmaker Jang Joon-hwan 2003’s sci-fi comedy Save the Green Planet!, keeps Lanthimos’s trademarked surreal nihilism in check until the very end, for ultimate impact. Oh, it’s not that everything that builds to that ending — full of black comedy, social commentary, suspense, horror, and more — isn’t sharp and stinging. But while Lanthimos’s other trademark, genre hopping, remains intact throughout, we also get perhaps more direct, unironic warmth than the filmmaker has given us before… though even that is difficult, and comes with many direct challenges to our empathy.
It is, to be honest, really tough to feel too bad for the kidnapped CEO at first. Her calculated coldness is robotic; Stone is dryly, bleakly funny whether her Michelle is navigating her regimented morning routine of Krav Maga and age-defying supplements or trying to come across as authentic and caring on a company video advocating for corporate diversity. (The actor also went all in on the extreme haircut: her head is shaved for real onscreen.) Accusations of being an alien are not difficult to support… except that too many actual human beings, especially those with ungodly amounts of money and power, are often the same. So maybe she’s all too human after all.
Then again, Teddy is clearly in the throes of full-on psychosis, and there doesn’t seem to be any reasoning with him (though clever Michelle is not long fazed by his delusions and attempts to manipulate them to her benefit). Who knows what he might be capable of, and does even a hard-hearted oligarch deserve whatever he is planning to dish out?
The empathy seesaw keeps seesawing: Plemons’s down-to-earth (no pun intended) earnestness is winning, and we don’t have to join in his delusions to feel for a guy who’s had a rough life, from his drone job shipping packages for Michelle’s own company — he has genuine cause to hold grudges against her, and not just for this — to the hints of much darker, unresolved troubles in his past, ones that he is continually reminded of. Teddy is a man deeply traumatized by the very structures of authority that prop up our world today, as many of us are.
“Bugonia” is a real word: it refers to a belief (one perhaps somewhat metaphorical) in the ancient Mediterranean that bees are spontaneously generated from the carcass of a dead cow. How that applies to what happens between Teddy and Michelle will prompt much geeky debate, but perhaps one spoiler-free interpretation is that decay can fuel growth no one expects… rather unpleasantly like a cancer, perhaps. Teddy’s delusions appear to have come about in part as a way to explain colony collapse disorder, a mysterious affliction of modern bees that no one as yet has a good explanation for. Teddy keeps bees as a hobby, and in his mind, CCD couldn’t possibly be the result of humanity’s degradation of the natural world; no, the malign influence of evil extraterrestrials must be behind it.
The profound but unassailable misanthropy of Lanthimos’s work finally and fully comes to the fore in Bugonia’s haunting gut punch of a finale, when everything the film has been railing against reaches a grotesque fever pitch: We as a species are our own worst enemy. We’d rather entertain the somehow comforting helplessness of conspiracy theories, which assure us greater forces beyond ourselves are responsible for our woes, rather than accept complicity in our imminent destruction. And if we go down these sorts of rabbit holes? Well, in the immortal words of Butch Cassidy, the fall will probably kill ya.
more films like this:
• Arrival [Prime US | Prime UK | Apple TV US | Apple TV UK | Paramount+ US | Kanopy US | Sky Cinema UK | BFI Player UK]
• Prisoners [Prime US | Prime UK | Apple TV | Netflix UK | BFI Player UK]
Ironically, the AV Club, which used to be connected to the Onion, really hated this movie. Maybe they’re holding a grudge against the screenwriter for leaving.
LOL
“it’s Yorgos Lanthimos’s most accessible film yet.”
Hm, I think I’d say that’s still The Favourite, but I’d put this a clear second, which is pretty funny given how weird this one still is. The man has one hell of a fascinating filmography.
Anyway, yeah, this is great.
Now that I’ve finally seen the movie, the review reads very differently.
I do think it’s Lanthimos’ most accessible film, if only because it doesn’t end with @#$&*! bunnies.
It’s also one of his few recent films where the cinematography works—mostly—really well on a small screen.
Oh, and I hope it isn’t overlooked for best costumes and makeup.