Review | “Bugonia” proves original storytelling isn’t dead
Illustration by Sami Seyedhosseini, Cartoonist
“Bugonia” is easy to hate. It is weird, loud and off-putting. But for those willing to embrace its nuances and quirks, it’s just as easy to love.
An on-screen collaboration that I have been deeply invested in is Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone. After watching “Poor Things,” I was introduced to a new world of cinema, where being ridiculously uncomfortable — offset and emphasized by constant humor — became a kind of movie that I could get behind. My experience watching “Bugonia” reaffirmed this newfound love for me.
The dark sci-fi satire tells the story of a wealthy biotech CEO and a conspiracy-obsessed man who, after doing extensive “research,” has predicated his entire life on the belief that the CEO is an alien. After kidnapping her, the movie then explores themes of power, paranoia and the blurred line between truth and delusion. The movie gradually becomes more absurd by the minute, but never loses sight of the central social commentary it attempts to explore.
The movie starts feeling kinda off. It’s bold and loud, and you know it's not going to be a normal story because of the weird undertone Emma Stone brings with her. Her character, Michelle, is this no-nonsense CEO who runs this massive company, and you figure out pretty early on that her only motivation is greed and pleasing shareholders.
The other two characters, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his accomplice, Don (Aidan Delbis), are set up as the weird guys in your neighborhood that your mom made you avoid, but every time you had an interaction with them they were nice. As a viewer, you are fully invested when the anxiety ramps up because you have become deeply engaged with these characters so quickly.
Most of the complaints I’ve heard about the film are about the off-kilter nature of the storyline and about the way it ended. However, Will Tracy and Yorgos Lanthimos make an active decision to make sure you can’t settle in. The moment you think you’ve got the film figured out, they flip it on its head, and the finale is nowhere near what you’d expect.
I was screaming, gasping and crying 10 minutes apart from each other, and for someone who takes pride in always guessing the ending, I was well and truly gagged. The people who complain about the ending are the same individuals who often complain about wanting to see an original storyline, but aren’t willing to watch movies that push boundaries and take satire to another level.
While watching “Bugonia,” one thing that remains constant throughout the film is the evident familiarity among the team behind the work. Composer Jerskin Fendrix and cinematographer Robbie Ryan have worked with Yorgos before and came together once again to create “Bugonia,” and you could pick that up from a mile away. The score of the film was fantastic and perfectly fit the offbeat tone the film was aiming for. To complement the sound design, the cinematography was spectacular, with beautiful and dynamic shots.
Bringing all of that together with the acting, writing and directing, the film rests on a strong foundation even as it spirals into more chaotic territory. The team behind “Bugonia” is a testament to creative chemistry. After so many brilliant collaborations, it’s clear they just know how to make it work.
The film can be understood in numerous ways. It has an overarching theme about big pharmaceutical companies and their lack of research and testing that traps vulnerable lower-income families. They are constantly caught in lawsuits as victims who die using their drugs, and their solution is to throw money at these families, but they aren’t aware that money cannot compare to the life they took.
However, what I appreciated the most was the use of the metaphor of the bees. “Bugonia” refers to an ancient belief that bees could spontaneously be generated from the decaying carcass of a sacrificed cow or ox. The ending scene pays this concept off in a way that I won’t spoil, but it had me thinking about it long after the credits rolled.
With “Bugonia,” Lanthimos and his team prove that they still know how to shock, challenge and reinvent what people expect from them, if only we’re brave enough to watch it all unravel.
