“Greetings. Welcome to the headquarters of the human resistance.”
“Bugonia” is the latest film from director Yorgos Lanthimos; it is a remake of the 2003 South Korean movie “Save the Green Planet!” by Jang Joon-hwan.
The film stars Emma Stone as Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, who is kidnapped by Teddy Gatz, played by Jesse Plemons, who believes that Fuller is an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy who was sent to Earth to destroy it.
This marks the fourth collaboration between Lanthimos and Emma Stone. Stone previously won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Lanthimos’s 2023 film “Poor Things.”
Teddy Gatz (Plemons) and his cousin, Donny, played by newcomer Aidan Delbis, live in their somewhat isolated rural family home with their apiary.
The title of the film, “Bugonia,” is the Greek word for the belief that bees spontaneously generate from the bodies of dead animals.
Teddy is a conspiracy theorist who has fallen into a dark web cycle, and his focus has landed on Michelle Fuller as the culprit of the imminent destruction to Earth.
He manipulates his cousin into aiding in his plan to kidnap Fuller and force her to take them to her mothership in order to get an audience with the Andromedean emperor and negotiate for their immediate exit from Earth.
Fuller (Stone) is the quintessential wealthy CEO. Starting her morning with the treadmill and a handful of vitamins before donning her six-inch Louboutin heels and letting her employees know they are free to leave at 5:30 p.m.
Unless they feel they should stay to finish their work, in which case they absolutely should. But it’s up to them!
Teddy believes that Fuller is able to contact her mothership via her hair, so after they successfully tranquilize and kidnap her, Don shaves Fuller’s hair off.
Stone’s hair was shaved in real time for this scene, and she’s since sported her hair at all stages of growth on red carpets.
“What follows is a genre-hopping blast of suspense, sci-fi, paranoia and dark comedy made all the more arch by Jerskin Fendrix’s high-drama score,” said David Rooney for The Hollywood Reporter.
While much of the film revolves around conversations between Teddy and Fuller, there is never a moment when the audience knows what is going to happen next. “Just when you think you know what this movie is about, he jerks you sideways for a second, so you can’t get too comfortable,” said Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times.
Lanthimos is well known for his dark, satirical and absurdist films that often blend sociopolitical issues and the influence of power, and “Bugonia” is no different.
The base of the film is about aliens, but at the crux of it is disillusionment is the reality of the American ideal and who pays for the repercussions of it.
Teddy is looking for answers. Who is responsible for what has happened to his family, his community and his planet?
He believes that he will find his answers in the alleged alien of Michelle Fuller, but there can’t be one person responsible for everything that has happened.
“They want you to think it’s you. You that’s made this whole world. But it’s always been them.”
