Ticketworthy! - Bugonia

Director Yorgos Lanthimos is no stranger to over-the-top, oddball films. The Lobster and Poor Things are anything but normal. His newest outing, Bugonia, doesn’t quite achieve the same level of absurdity. It’s far more grounded for most of its runtime, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t weird. It’s still very, delightfully weird.

The film sees Lanthimos once again teaming up with Emma Stone, who plays a massively successful CEO named Michelle. She has become the target of a pair of conspiracy theorists who believe that she is secretly an alien hellbent on destroying the human race. The pair kidnap and torture her in the hopes that she will take them to her alien emperor to negotiate for humanity’s survival.

On a basic level, the whole movie is a showdown and battle of wits between the three main characters, and it mostly works. Stone brings a wonderfully aggressive girlboss energy to every scene. Even when she’s placating her captors and playing nice, it always feels like she’s working an angle and outsmarting them. For their part, Jesse Plemons and Aiden Delbis are also great as the conspiracy nut kidnappers. Plemons in particular has the unhinged, manic energy of a man who is convinced he’s right but knows how bad it could be if he isn’t. He’s not dumb, he’s just fanatical. It’s a really fun character for a fantastic actor.

Unfortunately, many of the same issues I’ve had with Lanthimos’ previous films are present in this one as well. He’s a director that loves a metaphor and social commentary, which is fine, but the message is far too obvious. Much is said in Bugonia about honeybees and their hierarchal structure. Considering that the film features a female CEO getting kidnapped by a man who literally works on the assembly line at her company, it’d be tough to miss the connection. Not everyone will mind the obvious metaphor, but personally I’d have liked a tad more subtlety.

I’d have also loved if the story didn’t write itself into a corner with the social commentary so early on. It’s interesting to tell a story about the disconnect between corporate capitalists and the workers that fuel their companies. That’s a good angle for an absurdist comedy like this. Unfortunately, the way that story is told pretty quickly makes the film’s third act twist rather obvious. The way it’s presented, there’s really only one way the story can play out, and you will likely have it figured out quickly.

Still, it’s hard to complain too much about plot issues in a film that’s as entertaining as Bugonia. It’s not Lanthimos’ best or most clever work, but it’s still fun. Stone and Plemons are both excellent, and the battle between the two elevates the movie higher than it probably deserves. It’s a perfectly fine film about maybe-aliens, even if it’s not out-of-this-world.