Is humankind even worth saving? That dark question fuels the wicked black comedy of Bugonia as two hooligans kidnap high-profile pharmaceutical executive Michelle (Emma Stone) with an out-of-this-world motivation. They think she’s an alien and want her to connect with the mothership that they suspect to be hovering above the Earth just in time for an impending eclipse.
Michelle insists that she’s not an alien, but her kidnapper, Teddy (Jesse Plemons), doesn’t bite. He’s a bit of a nutter with his home plastered with newspaper clippings, star mappings, and all sorts of conspiratorial evidence criss-crossed in one of those elaborate investigation boards that exist only in the movies. All the stars point to Michelle as the queen bee, and the buzzing in Teddy’s backyard apiary suggests that he’s right.
The riotous premise of Bugonia should be all that one knows going in, if that. Fuelled by a devilishly funny screenplay by Will Tracy ( The Menu ), Bugonia delivers one of the most original films you’ll see this year. As it edges towards the black hole of humanity, it consistently surprises by snuffing out hope for humanity.
While it’s a bleak affair, director Yorgos Lanthimos ( Poor Things ) handles it with a light touch no matter how darks things get. Bugonia boasts a major rebound for the director after last year’s misfire Kinds of Kindness . He finds his groove again with the kind of absurdist, yet unsettlingly reflective, comedy that characterizes his best works. If Kinds of Kindness seems weird for the sake of being weird, then Bugonia asserts its authenticity by bringing audiences to the precipice of the lunatic fringe and gleefully knocking them over the edge.
The mystery of where this will land provides a cinematic thrill. As Teddy and his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), a cautious accomplice with an intellectual disability, hold Michelle to their DIY interrogation methods, Bugonia spins a captivating yarn about the alternate realities people create and the sheer impossibility of convincing them of the opposite. This film speaks to the moment in which people who spend too much time in their self-contained worlds exterminate all rational thought and lets chaos reign.
Teddy and Don shave Michelle’s hair, arguing that her follicles serve as some kind of communication transmitter. She slathers herself with ointment at their insistence, presumably to weaken her defenses. Teddy shocks her with enough volts to fry half the cast of The Green Mile , and when that doesn’t help, they play dumb and bow to extraterrestrial royalty hoping to win her favour. Nothing works, though, as the smart CEO remains cool and collected in the face of such clear insanity.
Stone, working with Lanthimos after The Favourite , Kinds of Kindness , and her Oscar winning turn in Poor Things , continues what’s now one of the great actor-director pairings. Stone delivers another fearless performance that pushes the boundaries of what Hollywood ingénues can do. Michelle serves as the voice of sanity amid the sheer lunacy of Teddy’s plot. Her calm and stoic strength in the face of absurdly irrational logic honestly feels like the only trait that makes Michelle seem alien. Her ability to play it straight as events spiral out of control, and Plemons and Delbis escalate the comedic gusto of their performances, makes for a very satisfying battle of wits. The more they insist Michelle to be the alien, the more she seems like the only human in the room.
Plemons holds his own too as Teddy wrestles with anger and a desire for vengeance. Teddy obviously isn’t well, and Bugonia empathetically considers the way that corporate greed transforms and devastates people on the lower rungs of the ladder. He knows he’s past the brink, but can’t right himself over the ledge. Delbis, meanwhile, makes a great impression as Don. He’s the variable in the unstable triangle of the affair, clearly overwhelmed by the situation and swayed by Michelle’s apparent humanity, yet tethered to his loyalty to Teddy. The film leaves audiences guessing as Don becomes a pawn in tug of war between parties.
Lanthimos keeps everything off-kilter, too, as the world of Bugonia seems strange and new even though it presents a perfectly normal nondescript American working class town. Composer Jerskin Fendrix and production designer James Price equally contribute to the sense of the uncanny. The team makes every frame of Bugonia is strange odyssey. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan, shooting on VistaVision, makes Teddy’s grimy, unkempt home resemble a warm and inviting cave thanks to the textures of the images, while the lenses warp perspective, depth, and spatial relations, often granting Michelle authority. The voice of reason or queen of the mothership, take your pick. You’ll never quite know where you’re going, but be delightfully gobsmacked once the day of the eclipse arrives.
