Directed By Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring – Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis

The Plot – Two conspiracy-obsessed young men (Plemons, Delbis) kidnap the high-powered CEO (Stone) of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

Rated R for bloody violent content including a suicide, grisly images and adult language.

BUGONIA – Official Trailer [HD] – Only in Theaters October 24

POSITIVES

Based on the 2003 South Korean film, “Save the Green Planet!”, “Bugonia” represents a creative and artistic return to form for Yorgos Lanthimos, whose last film, “Kinds of Kindness”, didn’t quite attain the kind of mainstream notoriety that his uniqueness for storytelling so rightfully deserved. While this film is much more accessible than its predecessor, it isn’t afraid of taking the audience down some darkly depraved corridors, specifically in the air of its thematic impulses, pertaining to everything from conspiracy theories, to corporate disillusionment, all towards dissecting the current cultural divide that has only intensified with an abundance of fake news articles continuously pushing a narrative that only uninformed opportunists buy into. In a lot of ways, it can effortlessly serve as a companion piece to Ari Aster’s “Eddington” (Ari even serves as a producer on this film), except this film is far more able to emphasize its grasp on the poetic poignancy of the material, keeping it from ever feeling sacrificially convoluted, or at the very least boring throughout its nearly two hour runtime, and while the themes certainly resonate over the duration of the movie’s long-winded journey, it’s screenwriter Will Tracy’s investment to characters that wields the script’s single biggest appeal, strapping audiences in for a roller-coaster of retribution between sides, which constantly shifts the pendulum of empathy between two morally flawed characters with their own definition of reality. What’s most strange is Plemons’ Teddy is unavoidably a tin hat conspiracist, seeking a resolution in kidnapping a highly influential CEO of a very powerful company, and putting her through frequent bouts of traumatic abuse, yet he’s the one I found myself concerned for, throughout the majority of the movie’s duration, perhaps in the ways that the film constantly utilizes Stone’s Michelle as the physical embodiment of every disconnected boss from reality that any of us has ever had to endure. While Teddy’s methods certainly leave more to be desired, even if internally indulging in the fantasy to get even with someone who takes advantage of the hard work of those underappreciated, Michelle’s weaponizing of corporate jargon during compelling interactions between her and her captor get under your skin with the kind of penetrating venom that stings with her artificial brand of composure and conflict resolution, all with an underlining wild card of previously established conflict between them, which Tracy and Lanthimos enact with a dreamily dreary sequence that metaphorically tells us everything that we need to know about this dynamic, without deliberately coming out and spoon-feeding us within the movie’s dialogue. Because Tracy keeps so much of Teddy’s realities in backstory guarded close to the chest, you never quite attain a sense of reality within the many presented aspects of his life, which in turn makes him quite an unsettling and unpredictable figure to properly gauge, and considering what we do learn about him pertains to him being a clearly traumatized and mentally ill kind of unstable man, Lanthimos conveys an urgency and awareness for undiagnosed ailments, that open the door to such palpable angst during intellectual dismissal, appraising refreshing empathy to a character that has certainly suffered, even without wholeheartedly justifying the air of his emotionally driven actions On top of this, Tracy revels in the speculation of Teddy’s theories, specifically if Michelle really is an alien, perhaps as a means to show how easily influenced society is towards believing the bigger, bolder accusation, despite a lack of evidential foundation that can at least make it feel possible, and its trepid tiptoeing of the truth inscribed an anxiousness in the ambiguity that effectively drove the psychology of these confrontations to profoundly twisted heights, all featuring some gruesomely uncomfortable elements of site in contorting prosthetics, and sound in bone-crunching anatomical duress that earns every inch of its limitless tenderizing of the aforementioned R-rating. On the subject of the film’s technical components, the film is shot marvelously by longtime Lanthimos collaborator, Robbie Ryan, eliciting all of the surveilling side-scrolls and prolonged single take shots that have allowed us to revel in the grandeur of some of Lanthimos colorfully intoxicating worlds, but his homage to Stanley Kubrick, featuring some mesmerizingly breathtaking wide angle shots conveying the diversified realities of the worlds of these polar opposite characters, continuously stunned me in my tracks, attaining so much stylized merit for a film that at its core is a home invasion kidnapping about exacting vengeance. Ryan receives ample help in everything from the movie’s intensely riveting score from Jerskin Fendrix, conjuring giant brassy compositions that emphasize urgency to otherwise trivialized actions of characters, as a means of further obscuring expectations in the tonal realities for an audience already overwhelmed by discomfort, to the overall flow of the film being constructively benefited from some of the year’s best editing, everything here subscribes to the kind of uniquely indulging means of escapism that only one of the best director’s working today could possibly inspire, imbedding a fitting return to form for Lanthimos, who has redeemed himself after the inconsistent execution of the culturally divided “Kinds of Kindness”. I would also be doing a grave disservice if I didn’t overtly gush over the magnitude of performances brandished by Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, as both enact such a grounded gravitas to characters who could easily come across as cartoonishly silly in lesser approaches to character. Stone continues to prove that she is the ultimate Lanthimos actress, not only in continuously adapting to whatever kind of tone that the director’s films hurl at her, but also in the ways she constantly rises to the occasion of Lanthimos constructing such differing characters between each film. Stone unsurprisingly nails the character’s grasp on power, particularly in situations that would cripple normal people with the anxieties of so much uncertainty in the situation, and with Stone eliciting the stone-faced demeanor, for lack of a better phrase, that approaches every conflict with the kind of artificial concern serving as an act of empathy towards those interacting with her, she exacts a remorselessness that does feed into the aforementioned Teddy-conceived speculation of the character, cementing another meaningful turn under Yorgos’ guidance. However, this is undoubtedly a vehicle for Jesse Plemons talents, specifically the grounded approach that he lends to the scary and surreal character, who Plemons imbeds elements of unbridled rage and intensity to the festered trauma that stirs the sensibilities of Teddy. Considering Plemons’ characters have always elicited a containing emphasis to their uncomfortable underlining, it’s great to see him exert the capitalized freedom to blow off steam in ways that feel like a hurricane to the integrity of various set pieces, proving the actor has earned every bit of the rise to prominence that he has taken seriously with every role.

NEGATIVES

While my complaints about the film don’t amount to much beyond scattered instances of occasional dejecting from the proceedings, I can say there are some underwhelming aspects that I wish were fleshed out a bit more fluidly in the film’s finished product, specifically some character motivations during the film’s more vital moments, which took me out of my investment a bit, from the lack of logic that transpired from them. One such example pertains to the tragic death of a secondary character in the hospital, which is accelerated on account of another character doing something so unbelievably stupid to them. I can understand that grief makes people do strangely unpredictable things, especially given the circumstances, of but this character buys into a level of bullshit that isn’t even remotely viable to believe, for a single solitary second, and this and some other spontaneous character actions unfortunately articulated that Tracy wasn’t free from eventual contrivances, especially when the journey of the engagement requires us to get from one place to another, without conveniences. Aside from this, the only other problem that I had with “Bugonia” pertained to a twist elicited near the movie’s ending, which I felt the film telegraphed with some obvious inclusions to the script, that could only capably produce one entertaining outcome to the movie’s ending. While I did enjoy this twist, and I think it results in a final music sequence involving Peter, Paul & Mary, that cleverly taps into the urgency needed with unchanging society, it took a bit of the impact away in being able to effectively predict where the movie was headed, as quick as its opening half hour mark, but one that I feel might highly influence other audience’s opinions about the film, who were fortunate enough to not see something so glaringly evident, which is made all the more frustrating, considering I haven’t seen “Save the Green Planet!”.

OVERALL
“Bugonia” is a chillingly bonkers kind of environmental exploration for Yorgos Lanthimos, whose unique remake not only provides audiences with attention-grabbing stylism reminiscent of his earlier work, but also boldly beckons an honest bleakness to the urgency of Mother Nature’s dilemma, featuring an ending sequence that visually and lyrically begs us to change where its characters couldn’t. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons revel in the kinds of extraordinary performances that elevate the occasionally contrived material, in turn cementing a satisfyingly strange return to form for Lanthimos, whose aching for the absurd still fills the gap of expressively elaborate cinema that makes you shriek just as much as it makes you think

My Grade: 8.8 or A-