{"id":92410,"date":"2025-10-21T16:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/92410\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T16:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:03:08","slug":"bugonia-is-bat-s-film-from-yorgos-lanthamos-at-ciff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/92410\/","title":{"rendered":"Bugonia Is Bat-S*** Film from Yorgos Lanthamos at CIFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBugonia<\/a>,\u201d from Yoros Lanthamos<\/a>, follows two conspiracy obsessed young men, portrayed by Jesse Clemens as Teddy and Aidan Delbis as Don. They kidnap the powerful CEO of Axiolith, Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) because they believe she is an alien planning to destroy Earth. Cue the weird, the quirky and the bizarre, because Lanthamos is back! \u201cBugonia\u201d screened in Chicago during the 61st Chicago International Film Festival,<\/a> ongoing until October 26th.<\/p>\n

THE KIDNAPPING<\/p>\n

The kidnapping sequence itself is worth the price of admission. Kidnapping Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone)<\/a> is no easy task! She puts up one hell of a fight. That doesn\u2019t prevent her from being restrained in the basement of Teddy\u2019s ramshackle\u00a0 house or from having her head shaved. (Teddy believes that it is through her hair that Michelle can communicate with the Mother Ship of her Andromeda alien Emperor and people.) The countdown to the lunar eclipse is on, and Teddy believes that Michelle can get him aboard her Mother Ship during<\/p>\n

Teddy\u2019s firm belief in how right he is and how wrong everyone else is rivals the MAGA movement\u2019s acolytes. Trying to have a civilized debate with him can end in violence very quickly and often does (another MAGA commonality). We are acutely aware of the danger that Michelle Fuller is in at all times. We worry for her every second that she is captive in Teddy\u2019s basement.<\/p>\n

\"Bugonia<\/a><\/p>\n

One interesting promotional sidelight: the Culver Theatre in California offered free admission to anyone bald or willing to become bald (hairdresser on the premises beginning at 6 p.m.)\u00a0 on October 20th to see \u201cBugonia.\u201d Culver Theatre also had a treadmill screening of \u201cThe Long Walk\u201d when it opened, another creative concept.<\/p>\n

DIRECTOR<\/p>\n

Yorgos Lanthimos honed his skills as a director working for television and has since released \u201cKinetta\u201d (2004), \u201cDogtooth\u201d (2009, which won \u201cUn Certain Regard\u201d recognition as Cannes), \u201cThe Lobster\u201d(2015), \u201cKilling of a Sacred Deer\u201d (2016), \u201cThe Favourite\u201d (2018) and \u201cPoor Things\u201d (2013). \u201cDogtooth\u201dwas nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2011 Oscars. Lanthamos has amassed 5 Oscar nominations with 72 wins in other competitions and 193 nominations.<\/p>\n

His films earn well-deserved adjectives such as tense, darkly funny, absurd, bizarre, odd and weird. All apply to \u201cBugonia.\u201d Lanthimos has said, \u201cMe, personally, what I want is to allow people to be engaged actively in watching the film. I like to construct films in a way that makes you feel a bit uncomfortable, be able to enjoy them, be intrigued, start to think about the meaning of things \u2013 and hopefully by the end of it, you\u2019ll have some strong desire to keep thinking about them.\u201d Thematically, the script examines the media\u2019s power, as well as of the ability of large corporations to walk away from catastrophes they have created.<\/p>\n

The film marks the fourth collaboration between Writer\/Director Yorgos Lanthimos and Stone, with Emma Stone winning the Best Actress Award in 2023 as Bella Baxter in Lanthimos\u2019s \u201cPoor Things.\u201d<\/p>\n

SCREENPLAY\/SOUND\/CINEMATOGRAPHY<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The writing, based on a 2003 South Korean cult film entitled \u201cSave the green planet\u201d is credited to Will Tracy and Jang Joon-hwan. Robbie Ryan is credited as the cinematographer and Jerskin Fendrix composed the score. I enjoyed the use of the Pete Seeger\/Joe Hickerson song \u201cWhere Have All the Flowers Gone?\u201d near film\u2019s end. I found some of the \u201cleave it up to the audience to fill in the blanks\u201d to be excessive, but we always got the general idea, with the particulars perhaps missing.<\/p>\n

\"Bugonia<\/a><\/p>\n

Jesse Plemons finally gets to sink his teeth into a lead role. He is a consummate supporting character actor, having started young, playing roles such as Philip Seymour Hoffman\u2019s son in \u201cThe Master\u201d in 2012. Plemons also played a younger version of Matt Damon\u2019s character in \u201cAll the Pretty Horses\u201d in 2000. A Mart, Texas native who is the great, great, great, great, great grandson of the sister of Stephen F. Austin (for whom Austin, Texas, is named), Plemons is in the Texas Acting Hall of Fame as of 2016.\u00a0 He was nominated for the Best Supporting Oscar for his role in \u201cThe Power of the Dog\u201d in 2021, a year when he also appeared in \u201cJudas, the Black Messiah.\u201d<\/p>\n

More remarkably, he has appeared in 7 films that were nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, starting with \u201cBridge of Spies\u201d (2015) and continuing through \u201cThe Post\u201d (2017), \u201cVice\u201d (2018), \u201cThe Irishman\u201d (2019), \u201cJudas and the Black Messiah\u201d (2021), \u201cThe Power of the Dog\u201d (2021) and \u201cKillers of the Flower Moon\u201d (2023.) Perhaps most memorably, for me, was his appearance as stone cold killer Todd Alquist in Season 5 of AMC\u2019s \u201cBreaking Bad\u201d television series. His earlier television work was as Landry Clark on \u201cFriday Night Lights\u201d from 2006 until 2011. (He was the only cast member who had actually played football.)\u00a0He had a small role as a bad guy in \u201cCivil War,\u201d which starred his wife Kirstin Dunst in the lead role.<\/p>\n

\"Bugonia\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Plemons is great in \u201cBugonia\u201d as a completely over-the-top psycho who has been brainwashed into his weird beliefs by his mother, Sandy, played by a mature Alicia Silverstone<\/a> (\u201cClueless\u201d). Teddy (Plemons) is so convincing saying \u201cWe are not steering the ship. They (aliens) are,\u201d that cousin Don agrees to be chemically castrated so that he can focus solely on the task at hand. (\u201cIt\u2019s all neurons, Dude.\u00a0 Kill\u00a0 the urges and be your own master.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Teddy and Don make the \u201cDumb and Dumber\u201d 1994 team of Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels look like Fulbright Scholars. In between Teddy\u2019s focus on his bee hives and CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) we get a glimpse of a tragic home life that has essentially wiped out Teddy\u2019s own family of origin, although his mother Sandy still clings to life in a care facility while attached to tubes and ventilators. Whether verbally sparring with\u00a0 Michelle about who she truly is (Is Michelle human or an alien from Andromeda?) or convincing both his cousin Don and the Sheriff\u2019s deputy Rick (J. Carmen Galendez Barrera) who babysat Teddy in his youth and admits to molesting him back then, Plemens as Teddy is totally convincing.<\/p>\n

The script leaves us wondering about the totality of the backstory of Teddy and Don. It is not completely clear who did what to whom. What, exactly, did the Auxolith Corporation, (which Michelle heads up) do to Teddy and Don\u2019s nuclear family? Who\u00a0 were the family members, besides Sandy? There are lines\u00a0 that imply a large payment for malpractice because of a drug administered to Sandy that had horrible side effects.\u00a0 Who were the others affected? There could have been a more transparent explanation of this important plot motivation for Teddy\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Don\u2019s exact relationship to Teddy (yes, he\u2019s his cousin, but\u2026) is only lightly explored. Even the nature of the hospital-like structure in which Teddy visits his invalid mother is not quite clear. Is it a rehabilitation hospital\u2026.a regular hospital\u2026an asylum\u2026what? These may seem like minor points, but much of what happens in Teddy\u2019s attempt to \u201csave the world from the aliens\u201d is born of a revenge motive, not unlike Luigi Mangioni\u2019s recent actions against the United Health Care CEO. Shouldn\u2019t we have a better understanding of who did what to whom, when, and why? The themes of truth in the media, lying versus truth, people locked inside echo chambers of belief\u00a0 who cannot break out of their belief systems because of the hype of \u201cInfowars\u201d like sites are all relevant and timely here.<\/p>\n

I also share the concern that some have expressed that\u00a0 Emma Stone of \u201cLa La Land\u201d (1988) not be lost forever in a symbiotic partnership with\u00a0 films only from Yorgos Lanthimos. She has gone to the wall in this one, shaved head and all. Her stellar performance speaks for itself. I\u2019d still like to see her as a normal girl in somebody else\u2019s future film(s).<\/p>\n

THE FINALE<\/p>\n

For me, the end, the finale, was the weakest part of this psychological thriller.\u00a0 Select whatever ending you desire, but the depiction of the finale was hokey. It was staged in a less-than-convincing manner. More significantly, it\u00a0 undercut the true terror of Michelle\u2019s lengthy ordeal.<\/p>\n

Someone else expressed the sentiment, \u201cI liked it, but I wanted to love it.\u201d\u00a0 I agree. Thinking back over Lanthamos\u2019s body of work, I\u2019d\u00a0 express a similar opinion about most of the\u00a0 creatively odd plots from Lanthamos over the years, with the possible exception of 2013\u2019s \u201cPoor Things,\u201d<\/a> which I did love.<\/p>\n

From the perspective of the acting by two professionals at their creative peaks, this one was perfect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBugonia,\u201d from Yoros Lanthamos, follows two conspiracy obsessed young men, portrayed by Jesse Clemens as Teddy and Aidan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-92410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}