Bugonia is a dark sci-fi comedy delivered from the mind of director Yorgos Lanthimos who made Poor Things and The Favourite. Lanthimos’s work is one that has an acquired taste to it, but I can’t deny his sheer audacity at constructing a bonkers cinematic experience, and this effort is no exception.
Based on a remake of the South Korean film called Save the Green Planet!, this occasionally incoherent story is entertainingly absurd if you’re willing to walk through the admittedly loony maze Lanthimos sets up for his characters.
Emma Stone stars as Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. She’s kidnapped by a crazed conspiracy theorist named Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) and his intellectually disabled cousin Don (Aidan Delbis). Fuller is shaved completely bald and held hostage in their basement. Teddy is wholly convinced that Fuller is an alien from another galaxy. They torture and interrogate her, but she refuses to break.
Teddy explains to Fuller that there will be a lunar eclipse in three days and he tries to get Fuller to negotiate a deal with her supposed alien race known as the Andromedans to prevent the extermination of the human race.
Teddy and Don resort to some bizarre tactics while keeping Fuller, such as shaving her head bald because supposedly her hair is a conduit to the Andromedan mothership, and they even try a little electroshock therapy set to the music of Green Day. There’s also a subplot involving bees rising from carcasses. This is part of the loony maze the story throws our way.
Stone and Plemons truly embrace the absurdity of the material in every scene they’re in, which is quite frequent. This ludicrous premise, in the hands of any other actors, would have us howling with laughter, but their level of commitment is what actually makes Bugonia refreshing.
There are moments when the movie shifts between the absurdity mentioned above and startling scenes of violence that give it a jolt, and some scenes that, I guess, are designed to deliver biting satire on humanity as a whole.
The movie may or may not offer much in the way of suspense surrounding Stone’s character, but the setup is intriguing and peppered with some plot elements involving bees that seem to come straight out of left field. I still can’t make heads or tails of how they’re connected to the aliens.
One thing is sure: this movie is not cookie-cutter. I can’t say Bugonia will be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m glad I saw it.
