From bees to big pharma, “Bugonia” didn’t quite stick the landing for me as it seems to have for fans of other Yorgos Lanthimos films. Don’t get me wrong, the entire film is a well paced, wonderfully performed, expertly shot cinematic journey…up until the last 10 or so minutes. It’s the ending that’s really got me dropping my rating for this one. A remake of Jang Jun-Hwan’s “Save the Green Planet” (2003), it was advertised as a similar black comedy gone social commentary – but for me it just didn’t manage to hit the mark.
Starring, unsurprisingly, Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, two actors we’ve seen time and time again in Lanthimos’s work. This time however, Plemons takes on a much deserved and perfectly performed lead role, as a character named Teddy. He’s accompanied by an actor I hope we soon see more of, Adin Delbis, as Don.
The film opens with Teddy and Don, cousins, in a series of shots running through a sequence of workouts, meditations and prep work for an abduction of Stone’s character, pharmaceutical CEO Michelle Fuller. Teddy, in conspiratorial fashion, believes she is not a human, but an Andromedan alien whose purpose on this planet is to run experiments on humans for their own knowledge; not caring what pain, death nor horrific outcome this may have. It’s clear quickly to the audience however, that Teddy is a victim of some horrible childhood traumas himself.
With a mother who suffered an opioid addiction, a father who abandoned him and a babysitter who committed horrible sexual crimes to him, Teddy is now as a traumatized adult left to take care of his autistic cousin in the house of horrors where all this happened to him. Meanwhile, his mother is in a coma because of an experimental drug Fuller’s company put out to try and help addicts shake their addictions.
Let’s pump the brakes here a moment, now that we understand the plot, let’s dive into the title “Bugonia.” For anyone like myself who assumed we were talking about the flower begonia, with just a funky spelling, I hate to break it to you, this is not the case.
“Bugonia” is a Greek word that refers to a ritualistic belief of spontaneous generation, specifically, in the case of a dead ox or bull bees spontaneously being born or arising from its carcass. How does this connect to aliens? Great question. Lanthimos parallels human society a number of times to worker bees and their innate nature to find their place within their hive to serve a greater purpose than themselves. A sort of thematic suggestion Lanthimos brings to this film, unafraid to touch the topics of a higher power, evolution and religion.
Moving quickly to the next powerful performance, Delbis, who plays Teddy’s cousin Don, did an absolutely incredible job. He is an actor who falls on the spectrum, chooses to take his experiences and portray them on the screen for others to normalize and learn from; his role as Don, being a stellar example. He portrays an individual knowing right from wrong, but being too codependent on his caretaker and cousin Teddy to allow himself the judgement calls to make choices that differ from what he’s being told. Delbis provides an unbelievably human, raw emotional take to an already heady, morally conflating and confusing film.
A film that falls within the same universe this year was “Eddington,” one of my personal top picks from this summer. “Bugonia” feels like it lives within the same universe, exploring some of the same current events, politics and dilemmas we are facing in American society. It lacks, however, the same integrity and believability by the end of the film that “Eddington” managed to reinforce through its closing scene. For some audience members, this established the dark comedy themes “Bugonia” promises, but for people like me it just discredited the stakes and arguments it had inspired.
For its out of the blue ending, “Bugonia” goes from a 4 out of 5 to a solid 3 out of 5 on the spicy scale. Fans of Lanthimos’s work should definitely give it a watch, be that at home or in a theater, but for any other modern times-criticizing film seekers, I recommend you skip this one. Toss on “Eddington” instead, or any of Lanthimos’s other films.