Bugonia Review: Yorgos Lanthimos's Latest Is a Quirky Call to Save Our Planet

"Two posts in a day you say?" Actually, this morning's post was prematurely sent in error and you'll notice it's been taken off the site. Here is the proper review meant to drop today. Apologies for the inconvenience.

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Yorgos Lanthimos wants you to care about the planet. If only to save your own skin. Such is the case with his latest feature, Bugonia, an incredibly quirky call to arms about the beauty of our world and how hellbent we are on destroying it.

What's been called Lanthimos's most political feature to date, Bugonia is a story steeped in the world of conspiracy theory, toxic work environment, and all manner of things we point to as reasons the world sucks. But in Lanthimos's hands that becomes an opportunity to tell a wild, at times cringingly hilarious, story about our planet, how we choose to spend our time, and aliens. Lots of aliens.

Teddy and Don (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis, respectively) are convinced the world is being infiltrated by an alien group known as the Andromedans. According to Teddy, who subscribes to the conspiracy the deepest, their goal is to kill the bees and eventually destroy the world. He believes one of these aliens is in the guise of Michelle (Emma Stone), the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Teddy and Don kidnap Michelle, in the hopes that she'll take them to meet her planet's leader. But do Teddy and Don have any credibility, or are they just utterly crazy?

Bugonia is a story of the haves and the have nots, a deep and blistering satire of class distinctions and how that can manifest in trying to find a group, no matter how silly, to blame for life's problems. Teddy and Don spend their days engaged in cheap and hilariously absurd training for when they need to kidnap Michelle. These scenes are contrasted with Michelle's own training regime--the benefit of a woman with unlimited time and money--that is incredibly high tech and rigorous. On the surface, Teddy's hatred of Michelle is more than justified. Not only does he have a deep personal vendetta against her, but Michelle is played up as the boss from hell that everyone knows. A running gag is Michelle, with Stone plastering the widest of grins on her face, reminding everyone that they can stop working at 5:30pm. Unless they have work. Then they should stay. If they want to. But they don't need to.

Lanthimos crafts a two-hander between Teddy and Michelle, with each wanting to wield their power over each other and, in turn, having the upper hand in the conspiracy theory at large. Teddy, on the surface, seems utterly insane. His theory is so detailed that it sounds true, and yet it is those selfsame details that make it ridiculous. And he punctuates everything with reference to all the extensive "research" he's done. If Michelle seems like every boss you know, Teddy is every person you've met online who gives you in-depth discussions on lizard people or whatever cause conspiracy is popular this week.

Plemons and Stone are utterly fierce. Plemons is no stranger to playing an utterly batshit character. His buffoonish quality masks a dark inner torment. One minute he's able to have a nice dinner with Michelle, the next he's crawling on the table like a spider monkey to choke her own. His violence comes in sharp rages, unpredictable and lightning quick. But he also conveys the pain Teddy is in, desperate to find some meaning to life and an explanation for why his life sucks so much. There's also a strong vein of misogyny that runs through his personality. Part of his hatred of Michelle is keenly felt in the fact that she's a woman who would reject him.

Stone is given the less showy role of a woman who believes she's surrounded by lunatics. Her feelings are valid, but they crunch against her coldness and the violence of her own actions--albeit done behind a desk and with the aid of pharmaceutical drug trials. The unsung hero is newcomer Aiden Delbis as the meek Don. Delbis is an actor on the spectrum and his Don could very easily fall into the trap of being the Lenny to Plemons's George, bringing up a host of questionable exploration of how neurodivergence is depicted on-screen.

But in a movie where the characters are so outsized, Delbis brings things back down to Earth (literally) by playing the lone human in the group, in terms of having a heart. He truly vacillates between whether Teddy is sane or not, and regardless Don knows he can't go so far as to hurt another person. He's the lone character with empathy. There is a questionable element to how his narrative ends in the movie that's steeped in disability film history. It left me feeling very mixed on whether the character is truly good representation or not.

Where else can you see a movie that gives us electroshock therapy to a Green Day song? Yorgos Lanthimos's Bugonia is such a fresh exploration of humanity and what our future in the world is. One could say by the time it reaches its conclusion it's utterly depressing, and yet it feels so inevitable. This is a movie where you'll want to wait for others to see it so you can truly dive into its themes. Plemons is the MVP, though Delbis and Stone are also great. Another hit from Lanthimos!

Grade: B+

Bugonia hits theaters October 31.

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