Cinema needs more provocateurs. We’re living in a crazy world, after all, and the more filmmakers who can hold a funhouse mirror up to everything that’s happening is a win.
But Yorgos Lanthimos is a provocateur in the way an 8-year-old is when he pulls the wings off insects – eager to shock, but more fascinated by the act itself than what it reveals. He has a point to make, but can’t get beyond the infantile fantasy of “wouldn’t it be cool if …”
In “Bugonia,” his most accessible film since the Academy Award-nominated “The Favourite” (2017), billionaire corporate CEO Michelle Fuller (two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone) is kidnapped by conspiracy theorist Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his mentally challenged cousin Don (Aidan Delbis).
They think she’s an alien plotting the end of humans on Earth. She thinks her shark-like corporate people skills can get her out of this mess. “Let’s have a discussion about where this ends, Teddy,” she says to a nonplussed Plemons.
So we’re set up for a darkly comic tale of the need to reign in corporate malfeasance versus the dangers of social media disinformation. The problem is, Lanthimos has no interest in exploring issues, just raising them. The Greek-born filmmaker, as usual, undercuts his premise by blowing the ending.
Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia.” (Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features)
I won’t reveal that here, though those who have seen the 2003 South Korean film “Save the Green Planet!” – which Lanthimos adapted – knows exactly where it’s headed.
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“Bugonia”: Starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis and Alicia Silverstone. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. (R. 120 minutes.) In theaters Friday, Oct. 24.
The best part about “Bugonia” is that most of the film takes place in Teddy’s rural home, where he and his cousin hold Michelle captive (never mind that the haphazard way they kidnap her would have had the FBI all over the place within 12 hours of her capture, but Lanthimos’ films have never been about logic).
The two shave her head, because her hair, they note, is how she’s tracked by her fellow aliens.
The long stretch of captivity leads to a masterclass of film acting with Stone, Plemons and Delbis as they debate and argue the terms of Michelle’s capture and release.
This is Stone’s fourth film with Lanthimos, and she won an Oscar for her role in “Poor Things” as a Frankensteinian creation in 19th century France who gains her “freedom” by becoming a prostitute. Plemons is back for a second time after “Kinds of Kindness.” Delbnis is a newcomer who holds his own.
Emma Stone plays a kidnapped CEO in “Bugonia,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. (Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features)
Clearly actors love to work with Lanthimos, and it’s no wonder why – where else will you get such distinctive roles to play?
One exception: Alicia Silverstone (“Clueless“) is inexcusably wasted as Teddy’s mother, a vegetable on life support thanks to a failed drug manufactured by Michelle’s corporation
Lanthimos is an idea man with a vision, but little to say beyond his concept. It’s as if he’s trying to expand perfectly compelling short stories to novel length. Would Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” be as good at 400 pages?
All that’s to say, “Bugonia” is an experience. It’s not a cookie cutter superhero film or predictable horror film. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s form without enough content.
You wish it were about something.
This article originally published at ‘Bugonia’ review: Yorgos Lanthimos’ provocative film falls flat despite Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons.
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