I’m starting this review off with a confession. I, a self-proclaimed cinephile, lover of all things surreal, and a shameful misanthropist, had never seen a Yorgos Lanthimos film. Perhaps I was intimidated by the whirlwind of cultural contention that follows in his wake. Or maybe it was just the name. Whatever my hold up was, I managed to brave past it to see his brand new release Bugonia in Peterborough’s very own Galaxy Cinemas, an establishment that has been eating up inordinate amounts of my money ever since I moved down the street.

I knew very little about Bugonia prior to watching it. All I had managed to glean from my scant research was that it was tentatively labeled a suspense by Cineplex, and the guy from I’m Thinking of Ending Things is in it, a movie that I dare not speak further about lest I upset the five of you out there who liked it. Oh, and that the director held a “bald-only” early screening. 

Nevertheless, I am shockingly susceptible to the trailers during movie pre-shows, so I dragged myself out on a dark and stormy night with a terrible sinus infection and what I morbidly suspect to be a developing case of pneumonia.

What I didn’t know was that Bugonia is actually an English-language remake of the 2003 South-Korean film Save the Green Planet!. It was initially going to be directed by the film’s original director, Jang Joon-hwan, before it was handed over to the ever-enigmatic Lanthimos by none other than elevated horror’s poster child, Ari Aster. 

Scored by Jerskin Fendrix and shot by Robbie Ryan, Bugonia’s production team is almost as stacked as its cast, which includes Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone.

The basic plot of Bugonia is this: Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis), a pair of conspiracy-minded young men and amateur beekeepers, are convinced there is a race of aliens living amongst them called Andromedans. These aliens are to blame for everything—environmental destruction; broken families; OSHA violations. 

Teddy, the ring-leader of the operation, devises a plan to kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), a pharmaceutical CEO, believing she is one of these Andromedans. The end-game? Convince her to take them aboard her mothership during the lunar eclipse so they can renegotiate the terms and conditions of the Andromedans’ enslavement of humans.

Clearly this piqued local curiosity because the theatre was packed. That is to say, there were about ten people in the auditorium instead of the usual two. I think it was the first time I’ve had people sitting both in front of and behind me at the theatre. 

The black comedy aspect of the film became apparent almost immediately. Most of the first hour was punctuated by giggles, snorts, and me coughing surreptitiously into my scarf. I have to admit, the deadpan dialogue and slapstick comedy fed right into my specific brand of absurd humour.

While the moral purity of any of the characters could be argued over, it didn’t take too much time for the main aggressor to reveal himself. Teddy’s emotional volatility, his insecurity, his absolute conviction that he is right and everyone else is wrong, all made for a ticking time bomb of a character. 

He’s a sympathetic case, certainly, but one you hold at arm’s length. While endeared by his care for his intellectually-disabled cousin, his sense of justice, and I’ll admit, Jesse Plemons’s good looks, my sense of uneasiness grew the longer he was on screen.

Outside of its humour, I was also impressed by the cinematography of Bugonia. As previously stated, I had never seen a Lanthimos film so I had no idea what to expect. What I got was colour grading more similar to a Wes Anderson film than any horror movie I had ever seen, and wide, sweeping shots with one-point perspectives strongly reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick. 

In fact, Bugonia reminded me of The Shining in a strange way. Like the Overlook Hotel, Teddy and Don’s farmhouse stands stark against an isolated backdrop. Inside, an angry, confused man spiralling out of control. The comparisons are too easy. Does that make Don, caught up in Teddy’s schemes, Danny? And who is Emma Stone’s character? Wendy Torrance?

Also, like The Shining, the violence in Bugonia is frighteningly domestic. The majority of the runtime is spent inside the farmhouse, with its stained glass light fixtures, antique wooden furniture and windows covered in tinfoil. Teddy, Don, and Michelle are all trapped in the house together— Michelle physically; Don under Teddy’s order. 

Other than the occasional Saw-esque contraption, most of the violence inflicted by Teddy is eerily mundane. What does it mean when we see him slapping Michelle, throwing chairs at her? As they proudly announce, Teddy and Don are staunch followers of the Geneva convention. However, that applies to humans, not aliens like Michelle. She might sound, look, and act exactly like a human woman, but really, is there that much of a difference for men like Teddy and Don?

The gender politics in Bugonia are, if not confused, at the very least opaque. In Save the Green Planet!, the kidnapped CEO is male. The decision to switch the character from a man to a woman was allegedly Ari Aster’s. I’m not saying it was a bad decision, in fact I couldn’t imagine Bugonia without it, but it certainly changes the tone of the movie. 

The topic is danced around in a slightly tongue in cheek manner. Teddy and Don cheerfully tell the woman they have chained up in their basement that they’re not interested in her sexually because they’ve chemically castrated themselves in the name of psychic fortitude.

Like Teddy with the Andromedans, once I started looking at Bugonia through the lens of domestic violence, I couldn’t stop. How could I not when we see Teddy literally jump up and crawl across the table to physically assault a woman who said something he didn’t want to hear? Or when we see him strangling her on the dining room floor? 

This isn’t only the case of Michelle being punished for saying something Teddy disagrees with. However, as the movie goes on, it’s difficult to figure out what exactly he does agree with. He’s not happy when Michelle says she’s not an alien, even less so when she claims she actually is. She has to be everything for him, anticipate his every mood, his every passing whim.

Perhaps I’m being too sympathetic to Michelle. Afterall, outside the whole alien thing, she’s not exactly a good person either. She’s a superficial, passive aggressive, callous woman who may or may not be responsible for medical atrocities. Teddy has a right to be angry at her. I’m not trying to absolve her of all her guilt. 

All I’m asking is what does it mean to have to follow a man down a path of death and destruction because he feels he’s been wronged, regardless of if he has been or not? What does it mean to experience the film from the alien’s side, not the human’s?

Although the absurdly comedic tone remains strong throughout the entire movie, there was a very marked shift about two thirds into it in audience reactions. Up until that point it had been a relatively rowdy crowd, but all at once everyone went dead silent, and remained that way until the movie ended. Several people were on the literal edge of their seats, some with their hands over their mouths. When the credits rolled, a half-hearted round of applause started up, subsiding quickly into nervous, edgy laughter.

We all filed out of the auditorium. The staff had vanished, leaving us late night movie goers to lock up after ourselves. Everyone else ran off to the bathroom, I assume to change their underwear, and I was left completely alone in the empty theatre, feeling like the last person left on Earth.