Bugonia Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos (13th Floor Film Review)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia stars Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone, who makes the absolute most of her limited screen time.
In fact, this fever dream of a movie may well be the easiest pay cheque Alicia Silverstone has ever cashed in terms of physical effort. She spends much of the film’s 118-minute runtime in a drug-induced coma and, when awake, has very few lines to concern herself with.
I’m going to come right out of the gate and say that I’m very much on the fence when it comes to Yorgos Lanthimos’ absurdist back catalogue. I thoroughly enjoyed The Lobster and what it had to say about the pressure to fit in by pairing up and procreating, and how anyone who does not conform or aspire to that dictate is deemed inferior and has no place in human society. It was quirky, bonkers, and had a quintessential sweetness about it, largely driven by the finely drawn and sensitive performances of Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz.
On the other hand, I hated The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Its themes of Greek mythology and the death of free will are simultaneously disturbing and brilliantly executed, but I found the experience deeply unpleasant. The Favourite boasted some excellent performances but left me feeling in need of a scalding hot shower. Kinds of Kindness was bitingly funny but a tad too misanthropic for my taste, and Poor Things was a wildly enjoyable romp of a film that only the most churlish reviewer could dislike.
And now we have Bugonia. I don’t want to spoil it by giving away too many plot points, but it’s relevant and revealing to note that Bugonia is a Greek word (βουγονία, also spelled “bougonia”) referring to an ancient Mediterranean belief that bees spontaneously generate from the carcasses of dead animals, particularly oxen.
The film is an English-language remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan who was originally slated to direct this version but was later replaced by Lanthimos.
To pare the plot down to its bare bones, it’s the tale of two brothers, Teddy and Don Gatz (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis respectively), who kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the kick-butt, girl-boss CEO of the big-pharma monolith “Auxolith,” where Teddy also happens to work as a minimum-wage drone in the company shipping centre.
The kidnapping is based on their belief that she’s the leader of a sinister alien faction, the Andromedans, who have infiltrated Earth and are trying to destroy it by eliminating the bee population.
Crazy, right? I mean—what a pair of certifiable, loony-tunes nut jobs those two misguided scallywags must be…
The brothers also have another axe to grind with Michelle, in the form of their mother Sandy (Silverstone), who has been reduced to a catatonic state after being used as a test subject in one of Auxolith’s under-the-radar drug trials. In a move straight out of the villainous CEO operations manual, Michelle has, of course, covered up that wee “oopsie” by secreting Sandy in a private hospital and funding her ongoing care.
Teddy’s plan—if one could be so generous as to call it that—is to leverage Michelle’s life in exchange for the other aliens to leave Earth and stop misbeehaving (sic). He’s more hindered than helped by Don, who has serious doubts about the mission and Michelle’s alleged extraterrestrial provenance.
Things really begin to heat up when Michelle proves to be a far more slippery adversary than the brothers had originally bargained for. Standing up to physical and mental torture like a champ, she begins to masterfully turn the tables on her captors and gain the psychological upper hand.
It’s another multi-layered and intelligent performance from Emma Stone—far more subtle than her rambunctious tour de force in Poor Things—as she swings Michelle from loathsome and manipulative to worthy of cheering for, often within a single beat.
Nothing about Bugonia would work without the simmering powder keg that is Plemons’ Teddy. Part dangerous conspiracy theorist, part angry wounded child, he commands our revulsion and our pity in equal measure.
Did I love Bugonia? No, I did not—but I did like it, very much. It keeps its secrets close to its chest until the final moments. We may think we know the truth, but do we really? Much like Teddy and Don, can we ever be SURE —until it’s too late?
Jo Barry
Bugonia is in cinemas now. Click here for tickets and showtimes
