There’s actor/director pairings so strong that they come to define the core of both’s filmographies: Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, and now Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos.
Sure, the Greek director was on the rise before collaborating with Stone, having earned international critical acclaim for 2009’s Dogtooth, and his first Oscar nomination (for Best Screenplay) for the Colin Farrell-fronted The Lobster. But it was when Lanthimos teamed up with Emma Stone for The Favourite that something changed. That bawdy sapphic comedy not only earned 10 Oscar nominations but also a win for leading lady Olivia Colman. Stone and Lanthimos’ follow-up, Poor Things, did even better while getting much wilder, combining the racy humor of The Favourite with the gut-churning science fiction of Frankenstein. Critical praise led to box office success, as well as 11 Oscar nominations and four wins, including Best Actress and Best Picture.
Despite its sex, violence, dark humor, and gore (or perhaps because of it), Poor Things became the pair’s most popular movie to date. Props to them for challenging their audience with what would come next. Kinds of Kindness offered a collection of uncomfortable and unconventional vignettes, involving a husband suspicious of his wife, a peculiar sex cult, and an unusual business arrangement. Critics were mixed and audiences didn’t turn out. So what’s next for this daring duo?
Bugonia, a remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! On its surface, it seems the kind of class conflict scenario that would play well to Stone and Lanthimos’ shared cinematic interest. However, while screenwriter Will Tracy (The Menu, The Regime) makes some stark changes from Jang’s script, the resulting film feels strangely safe, even as it’s drenched in buzzwords and taboos.
Bugonia explores the manosphere, conspiracy theories, and class conflict.
Credit: Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features
Jesse Plemons, who co-starred with Stone in Kinds of Kindness, stars as a beekeeper and conspiracy theorist named Teddy who’s on a self-assigned mission to save his mother and the planet Earth. Living in a rotting family home that he shares with his impressionable cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis), Teddy is convinced that everything from the declining bee populations to his mother’s comatose state are signs that extraterrestrial invaders are already here, plotting to destroy mankind.
Having identified pharmaceuticals CEO Michelle Fuller (Stone) as one of these aliens, Teddy convinces Don to assist him in a kidnapping plot that he hopes will put them in contact with the leader of the invaders for negotiation.
Credit: Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features
In Save the Green Planet!, the kidnapped CEO was a man. The gender swap of the abductee puts Teddy not only in the conspiracy theory discourse but also in the American manosphere, where empowered women are often seen as a societal ill. Thus, Michelle could be seen as a threat to Teddy’s masculinity and identity, even if she’s not the nefarious alien he believes her to be.
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Afflicted with nightmares about his ailing mother (Alicia Silverstone), Teddy resents Michelle for her power, wealth, and the breezy calm she exudes even when discussing horrific news. His ability to use chloroform to knock her out and brute force to steal her from her home, shave her head (so her hair can’t call for help to the mothership), and dress her in his mother’s clothes are all victories for his mission. Not only has he succeeded in ousting this alien threat from her safe space, but he is also reclaiming the power he lost in failing to save his mother, recaptured by torturing the woman he blames for his mother’s current predicament.
But hey, you don’t cast two-time Academy Award winner Emma Stone (La La Land) to play a damsel in distress.
Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone square off in Bugonia.
Credit: Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features
Far from being cowed by Teddy and Don’s ambush or the many monologues about aliens and righteousness she’s forced to listen to while in captivity, Michelle is cool and collected. She exudes calm and frustration, but not fear as she explains as if talking to a child that she is not an alien.
The battle of wills that follows is the core of Bugonia. Plemons, a profoundly skilled actor who can play sweethearts and scumbags with aplomb, plunges into Teddy with an ego-free abandon. Where Michelle is introduced as impeccably dressed in tailored business attire, clean girl makeup, and carefully coiffed hair, Teddy’s mane is untamed, including a scruffy beard. And when Teddy wears a suit — to attempt to impress upon her his seriousness and status — it’s battered and ill-fitting. Visually, he is a downtrodden buffoon. So, when he monologues, his appearance suggests he can’t be taken seriously as he pontificates about the dangers of these high-and-mighty aliens, who don’t care about the people of Earth because their power can always allow them to move on to another planet.
As Michelle, Stone plays patience for self-preservation, a deeply relatable survival tactic. But as Teddy becomes more threatening, Stone morphs into various manipulations, ranging from cajoling to threatening.
As in Kinds of Kindness, it’s exciting to see these two scorching performers face off in a battle of wits, words, and wills. But frankly, it gets old. It likely didn’t help my experience watching Bugonia that I’d seen Save the Green Planet!, so I had a strong idea of where the final act would go. Tracy and Lanthimos weave in bloody, wild new turns to the conclusion, but it doesn’t make it fun or more profound. Instead, despite the star power, the dark sense of humor, the political commentary, and cat-and-mouse psychology between captive and captor, Bugonia becomes bogged down by sadness, or even hopelessness.
Bugonia is a bummer.
Credit: Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features
The production design, presenting the contrast of rot and gloss, swiftly sets up the conflict between Teddy and Michelle. The color palette and its suffocating yellow cast suggest festering, potentially of Teddy’s sanity or the world, and soon consumes even Michelle’s once flawless appearance. But the buildup to the final act lacks momentum.
The scenes between Stone and Plemons don’t so much build as they feel cyclical, until the wheels fall off, causing calamity. Maybe that’s the point. Perhaps Bugonia is warning of the tedious runaround we as humans do day in and day out, arguing over who’s right and who’s wicked, the world and its people suffering all the while. Sure, the trailers for Bugonia set up the expectation for a thriller, focusing on the capture and the manhunt sure to follow for a “high-profile female executive.” But mostly the movie is about who you’re more comfortable believing. And within that, the political messaging gets muddy.
You might revisit The Favourite for the wickedly sharp barbs or the crazy chemistry between Colman, Stone, and Rachel Weisz. A Poor Things rewatch is an enthralling plunge into the compelling collision of beauty and ugliness, love and loss, luxury and poverty. Kinds of Kindness might still feel like an enigma we have not cracked. But Bugonia, despite having a sensational cast and clear vision for its world, lacks profundity in its smorgasbord of hot topics. Environmentalism, oligarchy, the manosphere, healthcare for profit — all of these make for a dizzying brew from which Teddy and Michelle arise on opposing sides. But what their battle ultimately means feels oddly remote after all the blood, sweat, tears, and chloroform. I was left feeling neither amused, elated, confounded or enraged, but just uncomfortably numb.
Bugonia opens in select theaters on Oct. 24.
