I was a little disappointed with "Bugonia," despite liking it very much, and I feel that I brought this on myself. I won't spoil anything except to say that the plot is pretty much in line with the Korean film it's adapting, Jang Joon-hwan's black comedy, "Save the Green Planet!" However, watching "Save the Green Planet!" right before watching "Bugonia" impacted my initial viewing experience of "Bugonia" negatively.
"Bugonia," directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Tracy Letts, is easily the better film, with a much more coherent storyline and excellent performances from Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons. Alas, knowing how some of the key conflicts would be resolved in advance removed a lot of the tension from the experience. I think it would have been better to go into a viewing knowing as little as possible.
That said, I'll lay out the basics of the plot. A conspiracy theorist named Teddy (Jesse Plemmons) and his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Teddy believes that Michelle is an Andromedan, an alien agent sent down to infiltrate Earth, and is keen to get her to admit it and arrange a meeting with her superiors on the Andromedan mothership in Earth's orbit. As Teddy and Don match wits against Michelle, we learn about the circumstances that led Teddy to take such drastic actions, and how far he's willing to go in order to prove he's right. Because "Bugonia" is a Lanthimos film, this involves a great deal of chaos, violence, and pitch black humor.
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons were paired up previously in "Kinds of Kindness," Lanthimos's anthology film of surreal featurettes. "Bugonia" often feels like an extension of "Kinds of Kindness" due to its approach to similar themes and the nature of the storytelling. However, the characters are much better fleshed out, and the performances are more entertaining as a result. Stone's Michelle is a slimy corporate executive who is a very convincing liar, but also a vulnerable woman in a dangerous situation. Teddy is very affable, polite, and has clearly been through a lot, but his fanaticism emboldens him to do terrible things. Both characters are in a tug-o-war for the audience's sympathies as the kidnapping plays out, and they battle for control of the situation. Watching Stone and Plemmons going at each other for two hours is such a joy.
I appreciate that Yorgos Lanthimos has never lost his edge. Even after so much time and so many projects, his movies still feel dangerous, and he's willing to go to places that other directors wouldn't. The violence in "Bugonia" is jarring and upsetting, including an extended torture sequence. No matter how vile Michelle is, her subjugation is awful, and no matter how funny some of the fights and chases are, the fallout is ugly and sobering. Some of the most viscerally disturbing moments involve no onscreen violence at all. Lanthimos's style has definitely been refined over time, though it's no less blunt and oppressive. "Bugonia" has the highest budget that he's ever worked with, but this just means that his nervous long shots and panicky whip pans are accompanied by a full orchestra blasting Jerskin Fendrix's score, and the inevitable carnage is shot by Robbie Ryan in breathtaking VistaVision.
I want to highlight Will Tracy's script, which successfully transplants "Save the Green Planet!" into a very different tone and milieu. Genders have been swapped, backstories reworked, and American corporate culture efficiently skewered. I'm a big fan of the absurd deadpan dialogue, especially lines like "I'm crucial - in all humility, I can say that," and "Your hair has been destroyed." However, taking the story away from its scrappy Korean indie roots does lessen some of the charm. Where "Save the Green Planet!" was a high concept mix of different genres, "Bugonia" is 90% paranoid conspiracy thriller and relies on a lot more brute menace than eclectic oddity.
Finally, despite knowing what was coming, I quite enjoyed the divisive ending, though I suspect it would have gone down easier if Lanthimos had taken more time to set it up. But then again, it's an ending that is very fitting for a Lanthimos movie, and very effective at getting its points across. And while "Bugonia" isn't Lanthimos's best, ultimately I found it very accessible, very watchable, and well worth my time.
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