“Bugonia” is set almost entirely in one house, but it doesn’t feel confined. The film, released on Oct. 31, is expansive and playful, with compelling performances that drive a chaotic narrative forward. It isn’t just a kidnapping drama that plays on the humor and absurdity of conspiracy theories — it analyzes the underlying struggles and values beneath it all.
We open on bees. They flit from flower to flower, doing their duties and making the world turn. The insects become a guiding symbol for the morals of “Bugonia”, representing the fundamental goodness of the world and the ultimately fallible cogs keeping it together.
Similar to the recent film “Eddington”, directed by Ari Aster, “Bugonia” is an attempt to represent the world as it is today. It shines a light on social media, neoliberal politics, corporate feminism, conspiracy theories and the violence it all seems to inevitably end in.
Main characters Don (Aidan Delbis) and Teddy (Jesse Plemons) are lower class and lack access to higher education or upward mobility. Teddy works in package processing at a facility resembling Amazon warehouses. Don is neurodivergent and treated childishly by Teddy, who strings him along with promises of heroics and justice.
In a powerful parallel, we see the men doing haphazard stretches on beach towels inside their large but dilapidated single-family home. Then, in contrast, we meet Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the incredibly successful CEO, who is shown outside of her glass mansion doing yoga in a matching set next to her infinity pool.
It is a far from nuanced representation of class. However, the depiction of the contrasting classes side-by-side highlights the inequity of the huge divides in the modern world. Upon its opening montage, the movie asks whether it is fair for Fuller to live such a privileged life while Teddy and Don struggle to come up with explanations for why the world is so cruel to them.
Eventually, Teddy finds an explanation that he is comfortable with: Aliens have infiltrated the human race. With highly manipulative, valorizing language, he convinces Don to help him in his research. This leads to them abducting Fuller from outside her home in a cartoonish display of force. They shave her head, cover her in antihistamine cream and lock her in their basement.
What follows is a desperate game: Fuller, a highly intelligent but condescending victim, tries to outwit her passionate but gullible abductors. She clearly is an experienced public speaker and negotiator, but is also vastly out of her depth. Her repeated requests for an open dialogue are ignored.
Stone’s performance, including the commitment of shaving her head, was impressive. Her character, Fuller, is a performer herself, with an established public persona. Stone balances that with fear, desperation, command and cunning. For such a notable movie star, she is still able to disappear into characters completely.
The film’s visual language creates uncertainty and intensity, as is characteristic of the director of photography Robbie Ryan, who also collaborated on Lanthimos’ “Poor Things”, “Kinds of Kindness” and “The Favourite.” All of these films also star Emma Stone.
Ryan shot close-ups with an intense background blur that forced the viewer to focus on the nuance of the performance. Other times, he favored long, static shots from far away, refusing to tell the viewer where to focus or who is in charge. Overall, it created a film that was disconcerting, but beautiful.
The music also added to this disjointed and exaggerated tone, with unexpected horns blasting in quiet moments or tense strings plucking for minutes at a time. Composed by Jerskin Fendrix, the score was a living element of the movie that masterfully aided the narrative.
For those who got a taste of Jesse Plemons in Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” you know how subtly off-putting he can be. His performance as Teddy in “Bugonia” skillfully balances the ridiculous with the deadly serious.
The audience is given glimpses into Teddy’s past through black-and-white flashbacks full of clownishly exaggerated traumas. We come to understand Teddy as a tortured man. No matter the harm he causes, it is also backdropped by the knowledge that he is only seeking answers for the cruelty done to him.
Teddy refuses all help offered to him, displaying that his all-important ideology is really the thing isolating him. In this way, he seems more like a victim of his environment than an independent, malicious figure. The absurdity of Teddy’s claims and the sincerity of his belief lends itself to humor and shock. The audience isn’t sure whether to feel disgusted or envious of his conviction.
There are also other nudges at extreme ideology, with monologues of conspiracy language that seems directly pulled from the depths of Reddit or manosphere Youtube. The men are egged on by ideas of heroism and higher purpose.
Overall, the movie refuses to cast one party as the villain. One might think the abductors would be the obvious choice of bad guys. However, the characters are anything but evil masterminds. Don never behaves as an independent actor, Teddy is premeditated but desperate and their abductee is a powerful CEO who has hurt many people and acts disturbingly composed.
The movie is not sympathetic toward any of them. Instead, it shows them as they are in the world they live in, with grey motivations and grasps for power.
The several twists and turns of the movie might be somewhat predictable, but Lanthimos times them so they are still rewarding and surprising. The final montage is hilarious and shocking. And while initially frustrating, the ending recontextualizes “Bugonia” and gives it rewatchability.
The film ends as it began: With bees. Once again, it winks at the actual problems underlying the main ridiculous conspiracy.
Exploring what it means to be an advocate and a human, “Bugonia” shows a desperate man doing everything he can to save humanity — and in the end, Teddy’s conviction doesn’t seem that misguided after all.
