If you’re familiar with Yorgos Lanthimos, it may not surprise you that Bugonia is a pretty wild movie. Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis) are cousins who kidnap Michelle (Emma Stone), the CEO of a prominent local pharmaceutical company. Through Internet “research”, Teddy has become convinced that Michelle is part of an alien race he calls the Andromedans, who will destroy the earth in four days. Teddy intends to convince Michelle to take her to the Andromedan emperor. Michelle intends to survive the weekend.
For all this talk of aliens, Bugonia is a movie that is much more interested in humanity. The psychology of conspiracy theorists is a central concern, but it is willing to follow the threads a little further. It wants us to consider that humanity’s evil is so repulsive and incomprehensible that someone would look for an outside force to blame, no matter how preposterous. It’s not just about conspiracy theorists, it’s about the rot that creates them.
The balance between our sympathy and disgust on both sides of the kidnapping is meticulously managed. We see Michelle overworking her staff and learn about some heinous things her company has done. Yet we also see her kidnappers throw her into a van, shave her head, and subject her to interrogations and torture. On the other side, we see Teddy being a kind coworker and a good friend to Don, who is neurodivergent. We feel a tremendous amount of pity for Teddy because he has no power other than the power he gains from this kidnapping plot.
So Bugonia doesn’t allow us a scapegoat. Anyone with power, from a babysitter to a billionaire, is prone to cause harm. Those who have the most power do the most harm because they have the most leverage, not because they are the more evil than the rest of us. Conspiracy theorists are hopeful, really – they want the world’s problems to all be caused by one central thing, because that would be fixable. But if the evil is in all of us, if the nature of humanity is to harm others, then no one person can really make a dent in the solution.
Such a message could come off as overly preachy and self-important. But like much of the social critique Lanthimos has been doing for the past two decades, he finds just the right tone. His movies are always thoughtful provocations. They are exercises in understanding social relations that reveal deep truths about their subjects. He isn’t willing to simply skewer conspiracy theorists while we either nod in agreement, or roll our eyes at being told things we already know. He knows who his audience is and wants to make us think a bit differently.
There are a few moments, however, where Bugonia loses some steam. This is Lanthimos’s first collaboration with screenwriter Will Tracy, and Tracy’s writing is very good, but it isn’t always consistent. The dialogue is overwritten in places, such as an early scene where Michelle communicates with her assistant about a policy for clocking out. Stone is also asked to do a tremendous amount of exposition at certain points in the movie — and she nearly pulls it off through the sheer force of her performance, but not quite. Still, these are minor blips that barely cause any loss of momentum as the movie rockets towards its exclamation point of a conclusion.
