“Bugonia” Review: Another Lanthimos Curio
by Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
In ancient Greece, bugonia was a practice or belief that bees spontaneously generated from the carcass of a cow. Thus is derived the title of the latest film from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia, a remake of a 2003 South Korean film, Save the Planet!. In addition to being a typically absurdist Lanthimos film, it also marks the fourth collaboration between the director and actress Emma Stone. Like nearly every Lanthimos film, this film is intended to make viewers laugh, make them uncomfortable, provoke them, and maybe poke them in the eye.
Stone portrays Michelle Fuller, the CEO of Auxolith, a pharmaceutical company. She is kidnapped by two cousins, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis). Teddy has gone deep down the internet conspiracy rabbit hole and has convinced his cousin that Michelle Fuller is actually an alien, an “Andromedan” to be precise, and that these aliens are secretly subjugating humans and destroying the planet. As they keep her locked in their basement, they demand to be beamed up at the approaching lunar eclipse for a meeting as representatives of the human resistance.
Teddy and Don are shown to lead isolated lives, living together in a house that appears to be on the outskirts of town, where Teddy engages in beekeeping when he is not working his regular job or training and preparing with Don, who is intellectually disabled. Some of the familial connection between Teddy and Don is sweet and touching, especially because these two seem to be the only family they both have left, but it also has more than just a tinge of the tragic, as Don follows whatever Teddy says to do blindly.
Teddy is so far down the rabbit hole that there is absolutely no convincing him, despite Michelle’s protestations that she is not actually an alien. Nothing can convince him. It turns out that Teddy has a few direct ties to Michelle and her company, and what is revealed in his backstory is also tragic and clearly led to him becoming radicalized because he couldn’t deal with reality.
The prepping, scheming, and execution of the kidnapping by two cousins is played for laughs initially. The actual abduction is almost comical and slapstick. They take precautions once they have captured her, like shaving her head and smearing antihistamine cream on her skin to prevent her from contacting her people.
As things progress, though, more sobering details emerge. One piece of their preparation early on that they do to themselves is a massive red flag, but as more and more is revealed of the lengths that Teddy will go, and coerce Don to go along with him, in order to accomplish his mission, the scope of how disturbed he truly is comes into focus.
A majority of the film is carried by the three leads of Stone, Pelmons, and newcomer Delbis. As a wealthy CEO, much of Michelle’s daily routine could come across as alien to many people. While driven in her work, she does not relate well to others, awkwardly trying to convey that employees are free to stay and work as long as they’d like, but not required to work past 5:30. Her morning skin care routine involves wearing an infrared light mask.
After being captured, she tries to talk her way out of it. When it becomes clear that reason will not work, she pivots to manipulation, money, and other methods as a means to try and escape. Stone’s performance strikes a note-perfect balance of someone used to being in control realize they are most certainly not in control of the extreme situation they find themselves in. She also has to pull of a difficult balancing act with how innocent Michelle truly is and how culpable she may be in Teddy ending up where he is in life.
As Teddy, Plemons puts his talents as an actor on full display. He’s developed as a character actor in a lot of his earlier, supporting roles and shown versatility in the roles he has chosen, and solid range. It may be an unfair comparison, but it feels like he is on the Philip Seymour Hoffman career trajectory, the overqualified character actor who can become a critically acclaimed leading man. There is a desperate menace lurking in the character of Teddy that Plemons lets linger and occasionally unleashes when provoked by Stone’s Michelle. His portrayal of someone completely immersed in the world of conspiracy theory is scarily realistic.
The third acting leg of the trio carrying most of the film is Aidan Delbis, in his debut performance. While conceiving the character, Lanthimos wanted someone who was nonprofessional and neurodivergent for the role, and Delbis himself is autistic. Don is a good-hearted person led down a dark and unfortunate road by his cousin. Delbis gives an incredibly nuanced performance in his debut here and, several times, is a great scene partner for both Plemons and Stone. It’s not easy for any nonprofessional actor to be acting across from actors like Stone and Plemons, let alone as essentially the co-lead, but he is equal to the task.
Lanthimos is a divisive director; I think people who love him really love him and people who dislike his films actively dislike them and there is very little in between. While The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Kinds of Kindness did not entirely work for me, almost everything I have been a very big fan of, especially The Lobster and The Favourite.
He does less experimenting with camera techniques or narrative creativity than he has in some of his other films, but he cannot resist the urge to be subversive in his own way. There are title cards that count down to the lunar eclipse, and eventually by the end I realized that these were showing a flat earth. The film has a pretty bleak ending, too.
Bugonia is an entertaining and challenging film, but it is also unnerving and absurdist (naturally), which is not everyone’s cup of tea. Fans of Lanthimos should appreciate Bugonia for being another unique entry in his filmography, though it is unlikely to convert anyone who is not already down the rabbit hole with him. Personally, I drank the Lanthimos Kool-Aid a long time ago.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars