REVIEW: Conspiracy-fueled ‘Bugonia’ is a shock to the systems

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Bugonia, director Yorgos Lanthimos' 10th feature film, is a film about the systems we live in: the healthcare system. Solar system. Nervous system. Patriarchy. It's a wickedly smart and chillingly funny kidnapping story that takes place mostly in a dingy basement, but whose scope extends from the inner sanctums of memory to the outer reaches of the galaxy.

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This is an English-language remake of Korean director Jang Joon-hwan's film “Save the Green Planet!” (adapted by Will Tracy) takes generous liberties with details, but the plot sticks closely to the source material: Teddy Gatz (played by Jesse Plemons) is a part-time beekeeper, part-time e-commerce drone, and part-time conspiracy theorist who plots the kidnapping of Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the powerful CEO of the pharmaceutical company Auxolith, whose drugs may have driven his mother into a coma.

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If Teddy is the brains of the operation, then his neurodistinctive cousin Don is the brakes; played in a superb debut performance by autistic actor Aidan Delbis, he doesn't do enough to contain Teddy's rage and is the core of the film's emotional weight.

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Convinced (mostly) that Fuller is actually an alien from the Andromeda galaxy, the cousins ​​carry out the sloppiest kidnapping ever, imprisoning the executive in their basement, shaving her head (to keep her from sending SOS signals, of course), and covering her body with antihistamine cream—one of several precautions learned from their own research. (In a roundabout way, Bugonia also deals with the immigration system—the question of who belongs and who doesn't.)

The conversations that ensue between Teddy and Michelle are a battle of well-worn and well-honed wits, respectively. “No dialogue!” Teddy barks when it gets hot. “This is not Death of a Salesman!” These negotiations eventually reached a shocking climax that had me clutching my armrest and possibly never listening to Green Day again.

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Wild-eyed and glistening with incessant sweat, Plemons deftly walks the line between “Internet-induced self-hypnosis” and existential crisis as Teddy. This is a world of “pain traps” and “psychic compulsions”, where invisible forces penetrate like a syringe. But the mistake that broke Teddy's brain clearly starts in his heart. Plemons' performance—even at Teddy's craziest performance—seems incredibly compassionate.

Likewise, Stone's Fuller is nearly flawless: she wears Louboutins, is obsessed with health, trained in martial arts, and determined (according to the trophy in her office) to “Kick the Impossible's Ass,” she works hard, drives fast, and finds relief by singing along to Chappell Roane. If her monolithic Bella Baxter in Lanthimos' 2023 film Poor Little Things was an exercise in restraint and its polar opposite, then her performance as Michelle is full of arresting, expressive nuances that keep you from even blinking when she's on screen.

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Comedian Stavros Halkias makes a charming, if a bit repetitive, appearance as Casey, a local cop whose faltering authority dates back to his time as Teddy's former nanny. Alicia Silverstone materializes in disturbing flashbacks as Teddy's mother, the barely beating heart of Teddy's vengeance, horribly bound in a straw of long needles.

Like the best of Lanthimos's other films, Bugonia (the word is a reference to an ancient ritual in which a bull is slaughtered in the hope that its carcass will spontaneously give birth to bees) achieves and maintains an uncanny atmosphere of dread.

This is largely due to the return of composer Jerskin Fendricks, who wrote the music for Bad Things as well as Lanthimos' 2024 anthology, Kinds of Kindness. Its haunting score, performed by the 90-piece London Contemporary Orchestra, feels as if its own ecosystem has gone haywire. (In lieu of a script, Lanthimos reportedly gave Fendrix a list of four terms to work on: bees, basement, spaceship, and “Emily bald”.)

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Keen listeners will also appreciate the efforts of sound designer Johnny Byrne, whose attention to fuzzy detail helped create the harrowing miasma of Jonathan Glaser's “Zone of Interest.”

But the way Bugonia slowly turns you inside out is also a product of the unique alchemy of the director and actors. This is Stone's fourth collaboration with Lanthimos, following 2018's The Favorite; Kinds of Kindness (in which she played three characters); and “Poor Little Things,” for which she won an Oscar for best actress. Plemons also pulled triple duty in “Kindness.”

It's also a film full of amazing surprises that I wouldn't dream of revealing here – particularly the final live action sequence (to some extent) which may rank as my favorite stunt Lanthimos has ever pulled off.

More than usual, Lanthimos delves into the absurdity (and cruelty) that accompanies our desire to care for each other – a desire that can easily devolve into a lust for destruction. In the flickering basement light of Bugonia, humanity emerges as an alien instinct.

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Three and a half stars. Rated R. In theaters. Contains bloody, violent content including suicide and gruesome images and language. 118 minutes.

Rating Guide: Four stars is a masterpiece, three stars is very good, two stars is okay, one star is bad, no stars is a waste of time.

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