Bugonia movie review: A gripping take on the modern fault lines animating America

Michelle (Stone) is the CEO of biomedical conglomerate Auxolith, gracing the covers of all the international magazines. The fact that she is a woman, thin and beautiful, rocking Louboutins and laboratories with similar confidence, helps.

Teddy (Plemons) and Don (Delbis) could not inhabit a world more different than Michelle’s. Two broken and broke cousins living together in an isolated house stuffed with memories from the past, feeding on that and the conspiracies playing on the loop on their phones.

Teddy is convinced Michelle is an “alien” from the planet Andromeda. A barely comprehending Don (played with aching vulnerability by Delbis, an actor on the autism spectrum) tags along, or is actually pulled along by Teddy, who needs at least one person to bounce off his incongruous ideas.

The plan that Teddy, a worker in Auxolith, whose assembly line job is to scan packages, has hatched is kidnapping Michelle to make her take him and Don to her “mothership” for a negotiation with “her emperor”. This is the only way to improve their lives and that of the others on Earth, Teddy tells Dan.

However, Michelle is not your usual abductee. High on her success, convinced of her superior intelligence compared to the Internet psychological babble Teddy is full of, she seethes with barely concealed contempt and anger. Even when she is trying to placate the increasingly unbalanced Teddy.

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Stone is very, very good, as is Plemons. Neither of which is a surprise.

Nor is it a surprise that Lanthimos, in this remake of a Korean film, wants to not just stimulate you but bedazzle. It is impressive alright, the twist. Is it needed? Perhaps don’t ask that question.

Bugonia movie director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Bugonia movie cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis
Bugonia movie rating: 4 stars

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