Twisted filmography Yorgos Lanthimos has by now taught us to expect darkly comic images of modern life, both wild and mundane. His films perhaps inspired the most “What?!” reactions of the last decade, in part because they tried so hard to do so.
His films – farces, fables, experiments – live in their own surreal worlds. But its the last one “Bugonia” exciting, albeit tragic, connected to our reality. It may even be his best film. While I was troubled by the stark austerity of Lanthimos's films, I found Bugonia a chamber punch in the gut that was hard to shake. First of all, it's hard to resist any movie that has a line like, “Your Instagram has the Andromeda code.”
That's one of the things that Teddy (Jesse Plemons) incel eco-terrorist, says Michelle (Emma Stone) after kidnapping her along with his neurodivergent cousin Donny (newcomer Aidan Delbis) and tying her up in their basement. Teddy and Donnie live together in a rather remote, ramshackle old house. There, Teddy is prone to both his bees and crazy conspiracy theories.
But because Plemons plays him so deftly, Teddy doesn't seem crazy. He can come to completely crazy conclusions, for example, that Michel, the head of a pharmaceutical company, is an alien. But he is thoughtful by nature and cares deeply for his cousin. It's a feat of Plemons' innate good nature that we like Teddy, even when he shaves Michelle's head to prevent “it,” as he calls her, from coming into contact with the mothership.
The opening moments of Will Tracy's script (“Menu,” episodes of “Legacies”) cast these madcap machinations in an apocalyptic light. Teddy is very concerned about the fate of the bees; colony collapse disorder, often caused by pesticides, is one of his talking points. It's a phenomenon that, in Bugonia, a film that deals with the fate of humanity or maybe just mourns it, isn't just reserved for bees.
While Stone's abilities alone may legitimize the alien suspicions, there's more to why Teddy pinpointed Michelle. She is a proven corporate leader; in her office there is a framed Time magazine with her on the cover and a photo of her with Michelle Obama. Her company, Auxolith, operates out of an elegant office building, where Michelle manages her employees like a queen bee. She's well versed in the corporate jargon of “transparency” and “diversity,” but whether she adheres to either of those ideals is questionable at best. Before Teddy and Donnie jump on her, she announces a “new era” at Auxolit, with employees leaving at 5:30 p.m. But only if they haven't met their quota, she adds. And not if they're, you know, busy.
Michelle is thus a camera-ready cover for what Auxolit is up to, which reveals a toxic history over the course of the film, including opioid production that affected Teddy's mother (Alicia Silverstone).
The bulk of “Bugonia” is an ideological dialogue between her and Teddy back in the basement. It is a conversation riddled with contemporary divisions, comical in its impossibility. One is obsessed with paranoia and extremism, the other knows only heartless corporate speech. It is useless to understand each other. Watching Stone as Michelle try to reason with Teddy is part of the film's dark fun, as is watching Plemons' Teddy resolutely stick to his belief that Michelle is part of an alien infiltration of Earth that he wants to disappear by the next lunar eclipse.
The source of such a wild story, of course, can only come from South Korea. “Bugonia” is based on the 2003 Korean film “Save the Green Planet!” All of Lanthimos's best-known films were previously co-written by either Efthymis Philippou (Tooth Dog, The Lobster) or Tony McNamara (Poor Folks, The Favourite). But otherwise, “Bugonia” comes across as a quick continuation of last year’s song. “Types of Kindness” a triptych of black comedy, also led by Stone and Plemons.
However, what could easily be mistaken for an in-between film – with just a few characters and a few locations – ends up feeling like a climactic nadir for Lanthimos. Having made a dozen films that darkly satirize the sad, primal madness of humanity, it's time for revenge in Bugonia.
The film drags in the middle as it unfolds into a prisoner drama that becomes a bit tiresome and predictable. But the payoff is huge. Teddy calls his torture chamber “the headquarters of human resistance.” By the time Bugonia reaches its unforgettable conclusion, it becomes frighteningly clear how weak such a movement can be, and the film's apocalyptic atmosphere of resigned fait accompli sounds like a punitive death knell.
“Bugonia,” a Focus Features release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for bloody violent content including suicide, gruesome images and strong language. Duration: 118 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
