BUGONIA

Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-

If director Yorgos Lanthimos can be counted on anything, it’s that he’ll make a film with something in it that is very, very weird. It can be an actor, it can be a peculiar performance, it can be the entire story, or it can be a specific turn of the story. In Bugonia, it is very much the entire story, and a specific turn of the story.

In fact, Bugonia takes a turn toward the end that is truly wild, even by Lanthimos’s standard. It’s very easy to feel ambivalent about, the way the script suddenly leans into it, in a narrative space that many will quite reasonably declare is either corny or outright dumb—or at the very least, somewhere in the space between the two. There are some costume designs that are definitely . . . a choice. I found myself with a strange sort of appreciation for it, at least for the huge swing of it all, but I’d also have to admit the movie might have been elevated with this particular sequence removed entirely. That said, there follows a kind of montage that is both beautifully executed and deeply unsettling.

Emma Stone, now having starred in the last four Yorgos Lanthimos films in a row, plays Michelle, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Emma is abducted by Teddy (a stellar Jesse Plemons) and his intellectually disabled cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis), who are convinced Michelle is a disguised alien intent on destroying the planet. Very much to put a finer point on it, the pharmaceutical company Michelle runs is very much an active part of destroying the planet—not to mention a key part of treating Teddy’s ill mother (Alicia Silverstone, a strange casting choice considering the character is almost never conscious). Teddy also keeps bees, and we get many discussions about collapsing bee colonies while Michelle is tied to a bed in Teddy’s basement.

I can’t decide how I feel about the choice to make Don an intellectually disable character. I still can’t see the point of it, except maybe that it makes him easily manipulated by Teddy. Aiden Delbis, in a strong feature film debut, is reportedly on the autism spectrum, which at least lends the performance some authenticity. Somewhat ironically, Delbis apparently has no strong feeling about whether autistic characters should be played by autistic actors. None of this provides any answer as to what the purpose of making Don intellectually disabled was, but at least it gave an actor with some similarities to the character some work, I guess.

I went into Bugonia eager to find out whether Michelle really turns out to be an alien or not, which I suspect was the intent. Given Lanthimos’s history of wildly unpredictable films, it was clear he could go either way with this—or even end it with pointed ambiguity. He does make a choice about this, and the surprise about it is how hard he leans into that choice once it’s made clear. You might even leave the theater thinking: Okay, that was a little much.

One of Lanthimos’s many talents is to present a film with no particularly sympathetic characters and still make it compelling. Michelle, human or not, embodies the soullessness of a pharmaceutical CEO with subtle precision. Teddy is a grubby-looking conspiracy theorist few people would take seriously, which of course can be a huge mistake, given the circumstance—for instance, if he has you tied up in his basement. Michelle spends a lot of time trying to reason with him, and it’s clear very quickly that this is not a winning approach. All that said, Don is the one character who is sympathetic, and who even has any clarity of conscience—again, a dubious use of a character who is intellectually challenged.

In spite of all that, I was locked in with Bugonia, thanks to performances that very much elevate the material, which itself isn’t particularly bad either—it’s just not up to Lanthimos’s highest standards. It’s worth noting that Lanthimos did not write this script, which was written by Will Tracy (The Menu), based on the 2003 South Korean comedy horror-thriller Save the Green Planet!, written by Jang Joon-hwan. I can’t say there’s a huge amount of comedy in Bugonia; there are some funny moments, and a couple of laughs that are elicited by chock more than humor. This film is certainly twisted in a recognizably Lanthimosian way, which is something I can always appreciate.

To be sure, Yorgos Lanthimos is not for everyone. His films can be very entertaining, or they can be memorably unsettling. Until the very last scenes in Bugonia, it’s more tense than anything, with the anticipation of potential violence at all times—which sometimes happens, and sometimes doesn’t. In the end this script gets into the violent and self-destructive nature of humanity that’s pretty on the nose, so again, your mileage may vary. I have a lot of love or Lanthimos, so in spite of some clear flaws, I got a lot of mileage out of it.

Is she or isn’t she? That is the question.

Overall: B+