“Bugonia” isn’t Mad, it’s Just Disappointed
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone have become quite a pair. They first worked together in 2018’s The Favourite, a deliciously bizarre take on the life of Queen Anne. The two then reteamed for Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness in quick succession, the former garnering Stone her second Academy Award win. With their newest collaboration, Bugonia, it seems like a third Oscar statue for Stone might not be far off at all. And perhaps there may be a first win for Lanthimos. While Bugonia is a remake of a film that’s twenty years old, Will Tracy’s script and Lanthimos’ absurd director’s eye make the themes all too relevant once again.
Two parallel storylines open Bugonia. The first is the morning routine of Michelle Fuller (Stone). She’s the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, Auxolith. Think Elizabeth Holmes, but swap dingy turtlenecks for killer sunglasses and fancy coats. She presents herself as someone for the workers, but also wholly expects her employees to work themselves to the bone. The second storyline is that of cousins Teddy (Jesse Plemmons) and Don (Aidan Delbis). They live in a secluded farmhouse and are training for something big. Something that will affect the fate of all of humanity. Teddy believes that Michelle is an alien from Andromeda and that she was sent to Earth to control the human race. He believes they can kidnap her, force her to take them to her leader, then plead the case for humanity’s survival.
courtesy of Focus Features
Bugonia is based on the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! from director Jang Joon-hwan. There are a few differences between the two films, but going into them would reveal too much of the plot twists and turns. What remains undeniably the same is the inherent question about humanity. Do humans deserve to exist? Are we just part of a grand Andromedan experiment that has run its course? Look around. Look at how we treat one another, the planet, the animals, the insects, the environment. How developed can we be if we haven’t learned peace? Controlling the earth, forcing it to bend its knee to our will instead of working on mutually beneficial coexistence may very well be our downfall. Twenty-some years after Save the Green Planet!, have we proved that we better understand what it is we’re saving?
No matter how you slice it, humanity is starting to feel a little doomed. Bugonia adds to the dark cloud, but it at least offers a touch of gallows humor to make the sting hurt a little less. Plemmons is magnificent as Teddy. As tempting as it is to write him off as a conspiracy theorist, he shows the soft underbelly of a man who has lost his mother and is feeling directionless in a world that stacks the odds against him every day. We’re building a pressure cooker of a society, and people like Teddy are the output. There’s anger, desperation, hope, and fight within Teddy, all tugging at each other beneath the surface. Stone’s performance is no different. She’s chained to a bed in a basement of a weird dude who thinks she’s an alien. Even with her fear and anger in this situation, you get the sense that she feels for him. That she recognizes he’s hurting and has no real way to pull himself out of this darkness. Kidnapping Michelle is not the answer, nor does it provide an immediate sense of relief. The troubles that plague Teddy run much deeper.
courtesy of Focus Features
Delbis’ Don is the heart and soul of Bugonia. He’s a gentle young man who finds himself an accessory to a kidnapping because he loves his cousin, because only the two of them are left in this world and family has to stick together. He’s the entry point for the audience, their voice represented in the movie. When Plemmons’ Teddy starts to sound a little off the wall, Delbis’ Don will squeak out an, “are you sure about this, Teddy?” And the audience will relax a little, finding someone in this madness to cling to. It’s what makes the path of Bugonia such a gut punch.
Lanthimos has never really been an optimistic filmmaker. Absurdist, bleak comedy with nasty, violent tendencies and a touch of nihilism, sure. But optimistic? Never, until Bugonia. That’s not to say Bugonia is the equivalent of a Disney movie, but this latest film uses the audience’s expected nihilism and twists it ever so slightly. Bugonia is not warm and fuzzy about its human characters, but despite all the bad, there’s a tiny voice that says, “maybe humans are worth it.” Bugonia isn’t regret, but remorse, and that stings all the more.
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