On Screen: “Bugonia”
Bugonia
Conspiracy theorists may latch onto Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia,” but — for the rest of us — its surreal, satirical concept is beyond bizarre. Nevertheless, the film received four Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress (Emma Stone), Best Adapted Screenplay (Will Tracy) and Best Original Score (Jerskin Fendrix).
Loosely adapted from Jang Joon Hwan’s South Korean black comedy horror-thriller “Save the Green Planet” (2003), Will Tracy’s screenplay revolves around bike-riding, bee-keeping Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons), a disaffected loner who lives with his younger cousin Donny (Aidan Delbis) in a dilapidated Southern farmhouse.
They firmly believe that a sinister superior race from the planet Andromeda in a faraway galaxy has infiltrated our society and caused their beehives to be afflicted with Colony Collapse Disorder, a devastating phenomenon in which worker bees abandon the colony — perhaps triggered by the use of pesticides.
So — in what they consider a heroic effort to save the planet — Teddy and Donny kidnap Auxolith pharmaceutical’s powerful CEO, ruthless Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), who they firmly believe is an alien from Andromeda.
Determined to unravel her nefarious otherworldly plot to dominate and destroy Earth, obsessed Teddy holds callous Michelle captive in the basement, relentlessly questioning her about her Mothership.
Of course, manic, manipulative Michelle adamantly denies every accusation. She’s a skilled, aggressive negotiator, so it quickly becomes a tactical duel of wills — and minds. “Can we have a dialogue?” she pleads, aware that every toxic exchange is transactional.
Fueling the eco-terrorist conspiracy concept, paranoid Teddy repeatedly refers to how a mistake by Michelle’s Big Pharma Company left his mother (Alicia Silverstone — seen in flashbacks) in a comatose state after she used an experimental opioid-withdrawal drug in a clinical trial.
In her fourth collaboration with Lanthimos (“The Favourite,” ”Poor Things,” “Kinds of Kindness”), Emma Stone discards her red-soled Christian Louboutin heels and gamely endures one humiliation after another, including having her head shaved so her fellow extraterrestrials cannot trace her hair follicles.
And if Aidan Delbis’ Donny seems a bit off-kilter, that’s because the 19 year-old actor — making his film debut — really has autism spectrum disorder.
FYI: Derived from Greek folklore, “bugonia” refers to an ancient belief that bees can spontaneously generate from the decaying carcass of a sacrificed bull.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bugonia” is an absurdist, satirical 6 … streaming on Amazon, Apple TV, Peacock and Fandango at Home. It’s destined to become a Lanthimos cult classic.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.