Butler's Cinema Scene

Emma Stone

“BUGONIA” *My rating: B (Prime, Peacock)

118 minutes | MPAA: R

A new film by Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Lobster,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” “The Favourite,” “Poor Things”) comes with a promise.

It’ll be fascinating.  Terrifically well acted. And very weird.

“Bugonia” more than lives up to that standard, being a sort of extended “Twilight Zone” episode that starts off being about conspiracy obsessions, turns to a battle of wills, and finally goes completely off the cliff into LaLa Land.

Here’s the setup:  Corporate wonder woman Michelle (Lanthimos regular Emma Stone) is kidnapped by Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his childlike cousin Don (AidanDelbis) and held prisoner in the basement of  the semi-rural home where they raise bees.

When Michelle awakens from the knockout drug administered by her captors she finds herself chained.  Weirder still, she’s now hairless and covered with a pasty-white lotion.

Teddy, clearly the brains of the outfit (which may not be saying much), begins interrogating Michelle.  Turns out he’s convinced she’s the vanguard of an alien invasion of Earth.  Teddy’s conspiracy theory is an incredible collection of lunatic ideas, including the notion that the aliens use  hair as a transmission device to contact their fellows.  Thus Michelle’s shaved skull. 

Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis, Jesse Plemons

Michelle, who is well versed in the art of employee manipulation, tries to talk Teddy out of this madness.  When that doesn’t work she plays on the emotions of Don, who is increasingly uncomfortable with their captive’s distress (turns out actor Aidan Delbis is himself on the spectrum, which only makes his performance that much more believable).

With Stone and Plemons we may have the year’s best acting duel, a battle of will and wits in which it’s hard to take a side, given that Michelle is a veritable font of corporate/capitalist contempt and Teddy is well on his way to bonkersdom.

And underlying it all is an escape yarn.  How will Michelle get out of this predicament?

Thematically “Bugonia” (the title refers to an ancient myth about bees being able to spontaneously generate from the carcass of a bull) is a marvelous balancing act.  It’s suspenseful and anxiety-riddled, yet shot through with satiric moments. A real emotional roller coaster.

And the ending…holly crap.  No point in ruining the surprise, but “Bugonia” takes us places we’ve never been before.

| Robert W. Butler