‘99.9% of what’s called activism is really personal exhibitionism and brand maintenance…’
Yorgos Lanthimos is perhaps the most singular filmmaker producing mainstream (ish) cinema today. His films all share a strange and unnerving sensibility, and you can usually tell it’s one of his within the first five minutes. While I love all his work, Lanthimos’ collaborations with Emma Stone (The Favourite, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness and now Bugonia) have been particularly fruitful…
Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons), a conspiracy theory-obsessed beekeeper and self-proclaimed thought leader, enlists the help of his autistic cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis), to kidnap Michelle Fuller (Stone), the high-powered CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, primarily because he believes she is an alien.
Loosely based on the South Korean film, Save the Green Planet!, the central concept of Bugonia is that neither we, the audience, nor Teddy, the protagonist, know for sure if Stone’s self-assured executive is an alien or not. Lanthimos keeps us guessing until the final moments of the film, and it is this central tension that makes the film so captivating. Whether it holds up to rewatches remains to be seen, but there is no doubting the craft and skill of the three main cast members (as well as Alicia Silverstone, who appears sporadically and briefly as Teddy’s doomed mother). It’s almost becoming tiring saying this now, but Stone is, once again, magnificent. Unsurprisingly, she has received yet another Oscar nod for her performance here (her seventh – the youngest woman to reach that number), and her toxic chemistry with Plemons (who is at once both achingly vulnerable and dangerously unhinged) simply can’t be denied. A word too for Delbis, an amateur neurodivergent actor, who is sensational throughout (Lanthimos described the character as the film’s ‘soul’ and ‘voice of reason’).
It should be noted that while the director’s madcap, black comedy stylings are present throughout, Bugonia is notably darker than his last few projects. There are scenes here that I struggled to sit through, and it is a testament to the talented cast (and to Lanthimos’ assured writing and direction) that they can pull off the tonal whiplash required for such a disparate puzzlebox of a movie. One scene in particular stuck with me for ages afterwards. This one is not for the fainthearted.
Bugonia will be too violent for some. Others may be put off by the ending (it is pretty wild). But fans of Lanthimos or of challenging cinema in general will find much here to enjoy – a worthy Best Picture nominee.
