Bugonia

Bugonia info:

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Writer: Will Tracy and Jang Joon-hwan

Starring: Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, and Aidan Delbis

Hello and welcome to another week here at 1guysmindlessmoviereviews.com. Welcome to November! I spent part of the weekend taking down Halloween decorations and listening to the family ask if we could put up the Christmas tree already. It’s a little early for me; I’d like to wait a week or two, but I know some people are reading this now, looking up from the article to gaze at the beautiful twinkling lights on their tree. I get it, and it’s all fine with me, no matter when you choose to put it up (if that’s something you do in your respective households).

Ok, I’ve got a real doozy for you today, so I won’t take up too much time. I have a lot to say about the movie “Bugonia” by director Yorgos Lanthimos. Lanthimos is definitely at it again with this absurd dark comedy. This will be full of spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to stay away until you do. I’m sure there’s plenty for you to catch up on my reviews page here. In the meantime, for everyone else, let’s see what this was all about.

So, Bugonia is an absolute trip with absolutely tremendous performances by Stone, who plays  Michelle Fuller, and Plemons, who portrays Teddy Gatz. I have not yet had a chance to see “Kinds of Kindness”, but now I want to after seeing both “Bugonia” and 2023’s “Poor Things”. Lanthimos really knows how to tell a truly twisted tale and get the best out of his performers in the process.

Teddy appears to be an alien conspiracy believer. He very convincingly brings his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) into his world. By filling his head full of all the knowledge he has discovered in his research, Don agrees to all of the outlandish requests, mostly because he loves Teddy and doesn’t want to disappoint him. I did some reading on Delbis later and realized that (according to IMDB) he is on the autism spectrum. I thought he did a great job in that role, but knowing this makes it even better.

Once Teddy gets him fully onboard, they decide to capture Michelle. She is the CEO of a biotech company and has many daily routines and processes to keep herself healthy and in shape. But to Teddy and Don, she is nothing more than an Andromedan alien hell bent on the destruction of Earth. They hide in her bushes, attack her, and throw her into the back of their car.

From here, they shave her head so she can’t contact her species, take her to their house, and tie her up in the basement. As Michelle wakes up on a cot with her hair gone, she somehow stays cool and tries to negotiate with them. It’s clear that her years as a CEO have come in handy as she tries to make a deal to be let go before the cops come and find her. Teddy, always being one step ahead, keeps her chained to the floor.

Eventually, she tells him what he wants to hear. She is an alien, but he doesn’t fully believe her until he starts doing tests on her. Once that starts, “Bugonia” takes a sort of darker turn as some of the tests are borderline torture. After a particular grueling test, he realizes that she is more than an alien, that she is some sort of royal as well.

After an intense dinner scene where she almost gets away, Don shoots himself, and Michelle tells Teddy the whole truth. He believes her, and they concoct a plan to get them both up to her mothership. The whole thing ends with Teddy’s accidental death, and Michelle escapes an ambulance to make it back to her office, where she teleports herself to her mothership!

I have to tell you that I sat there and watched this whole film feeling bad for Teddy because you get the impression that the alien thing had gone to his head. Feeling bad for Michelle because he wouldn’t let her go, regardless of how many lies she told him, but mostly trying to figure out how she was going to get out of it. The fact that Teddy was right all along and that Michelle was telling him the truth the whole time was sort of mind-blowing.

I can’t tell you the last time a movie’s twist ending really got me like that. It was very well done, and I didn’t expect a thing until the last 15 minutes or so. I’m sure many would figure it out sooner, but I am mindless after all. But that also made it a bit more enjoyable to me when my mind was quickly trying to piece it all together as the last few scenes of “Bugonia” played out.

Overall, I had a great time watching this movie. The psychological battle between the two main stars was phenomenal. From start to end, it was intense and full of great dialogue. My only pushback is that I felt like Michelle was way too calm from the very beginning. If Lanthimos wanted to throw us off the scent, she should have looked a little more frightened. But even that was minor. I have been on a hot streak lately of watching good movies. This one is no exception, and I can proudly give this a 9 out of 10.

Watch or wait?

Honestly, there isn’t a huge need to see this on a large screen, but if you don’t want to wait to see this “Bugonia”, I would go see it now. It will play just as well later when I re-watch it (which I will to see what I missed), but I’m glad I didn’t wait.

Ok, that’s it for me this week. Now it’s your turn. Have you had the chance to see “Bugonia” yet? If so, did you like it as much as I did? If not, what parts did you not like? Please let me know in the comments below, and I will be back next week with another mindless movie review of some sort.