Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia

Each week, Drew creates a watchlist with film recommendations provided by you, the tnmn community.

Last week’s category: director debuts. The results are posted to our website and Letterboxd account every week.

This week’s category: escapist films. That is, movies that distract you from everyday problems. Reply to this email with your submission and why we should watch it. We’ll feature it in next week’s newsletter.¹

¹ If your submission doesn't comply with the category, I’ll ruin Tuesday Night Movie Night. I’ll ruin it for you and everyone else. I’ll start by hiring a consultant to “find efficiencies” for us. We can’t really afford a consultant, and this will put Tuesday Night Movie Night in a financially challenging position. We’ll take on debt in order to afford the consultant, but we’ll never really implement the consultant’s advice. Because of the crushing volume of unnecessary debt we’ve undertaken, we’ll need to start considering new business models.

Then, I’ll get really manic about becoming the Uber of movie recommendations. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make any sense. I’ll relentlessly talk about it at social gatherings until I’m not invited anymore, leaving me in an echo chamber of my own ambition.

I’ll decide that the best path forward is to become a film review aggregator. I’ll come up with a copyrighted, proprietary, patently stupid scoring system that turns every movie into a number — just like Rotten Tomatoes. I’ll ignore the nuance of every review we aggregate and the subjective nature of art and value each review at a whole –1 or +1. If 60 of 100 reviews are positive, I’ll proclaim that a movie is good. If 60 of 100 reviews are negative, I’ll conclude the movie is bad. Then, we’ll devalue the already flimsy numerical scoring system by allowing larger film distributors to manipulate the score by flooding the market with good, paid-for reviews early in the theatrical run to boost ticket sales. The whole endeavor will provide no value to you because, well, Rotten-Tomatoes-but-email is exactly what it sounds like. Not useful.

And you’ll be like, man — I sort of liked that weekly email I used to get. But it’s not the same as it was before, because I ignored the category rules that one time. And the writer was as petty as he suggested he was in all those strangely specific threats in the footnotes. You’ll blame yourself more than you’ll blame me, because, well, I told you exactly how it would play out. You just didn’t believe me.

So, ya know. Follow the category.

A spoiler-free description of the movie.

Two conspiracy theorists are convinced the CEO of a major company is an alien who wants to destroy Earth.

If you like these things, then you’ll like the film.

→ Jeffy P. Lemons.² This is Emma Stone’s nickname for Jesse Plemons. Every time I see Plemons onscreen, I’m reminded of what a brilliant actor he is.

→ Films that challenge you. Will Tracy, who co-wrote The Menu, has a knack for writing clever films that challenge the assumptions of their viewers.

→ Imperfect characters. When no one in the film is unquestionably good or evil. Everything’s a gray area.

² I googled “actor nicknames” – the results of which I under-examined to a criminal extent. The very first result led me to an exquisitely written piece by Cosmopolitan entitled 22 celebrity nicknames you didn't know existed. Featuring the sub-headline: “They're called what in their private life?” and statements like “I mean, everyone remembers the exact moment they found out that Leonardo DiCaprio is not actually called Leonardo DiCaprio, right?”

The first entry in the article is Meghan Markle. Harry calls her M. As I read this first entry, I thought to myself — how outrageous would the nickname need to be to like, actually satisfy the interest I had when I clicked the article. My mind was unable to produce a reasonable answer, but it was not “when a couple uses initials in place of their full names.”

I scrolled to the second entry. What the fuck. What psychopath decided to press publish on this article and ruin my day? The second entry is for Harry. His nickname is H. Why would this article move from Meghan to Harry, specifically when their nicknames are the phonetic equivalent of sugar-free gum. Give me the good shit, Cosmopolitan.

I continued. Miley Cyrus: Smiley. Anne Hathaway: Annie. Mila Kunis: Goldfish. Goldfish! Why did we wait until entry number five to showcase a nickname that has some layer of interest? No matter, this is not enough to please me. The explanation: she has a bad memory.

I need something that will light my world on fire. Something that will be so funny it will ruin my life. So, I think very hard and google “craziest celebrity nicknames.” The results will cause my pupils to dilate so freaking hard I’ll get a glimpse of an alternate dimension. When I read that first nonsensical nickname on this most outrageous list, it will just be so utterly insane that I won’t be able to form complete sentences anymore. I will be stupefied.

The search leads me to Vogue’s The Weirdest Celebrity Nicknames, Ranked. The first entry: Queen Elizabeth II: Gary. I feel elated. I fucking did it. I really did it. The romantic in me decides not to read the explanation for why people called her Gary. Not knowing is part of the fun.

I think I’m done here.

What I liked about it.

Yorgos Lanthimos is on a run. His partnership with Emma Stone has been one of the most fruitful creative collaborations in recent memory. These two just push each other to new heights every time they make something together.

Bugonia represents Lanthimos’ most commercially viable work to date — arguably rivaled only by his long-tail 2023 hit, Poor Things.

And make no mistake: though it is a more approachable film than his earlier work, Bugonia is not watered down in the slightest.

The film asks big, uncomfortable questions about class, information and income inequality, and human nature. And Lanthimos, as he so often does, packages it with the most striking, otherworldly imagery one might be able to see in a theater.

Writer Will Tracy, who co-wrote The Menu (2022), has penned a reliably unpredictable, darkly comedic satire.

In fact — this tale of a deeply deranged interrogation between a high-powered pharmaceutical CEO, played by Emma Stone, and a conspiracy-obsessed beekeeper, Jesse Plemons — might be Tracy’s best work to date.

Bugonia is something of an acting showcase for Plemons and Stone — both of whom add the right seasoning to every line of dialogue they’re given.

There’s a certain earnest desperation in Plemons’ work here. He knows when to pause, grimace, or deliver his lines through gritted teeth.

And Stone is positively acidic in her turn as Michelle Fuller. Her performance is a blistering display of cynicism, laced with nuanced facial work to punctuate her character’s superiority complex.

Also impressive is newcomer Aidan Delbis, who plays Jesse Plemons’ cousin, Don, in the film, who functions as the emotional core and conscious of the film.

Cinematographer Robbie Ryan and composer Jerskin Fendrix, who both also worked on Poor Things, deliver a film that is impossibly cinematic considering much of it unfolds in a harshly lit basement.

Ryan’s work here is close-in, shot entirely on VistaVision. When the camera does move, it’s abrupt, without warning, and intensely in line with the motion of onscreen characters.

Fendrix’s score is, at times, the sonic equivalent of the inside a beehive. As the film progresses, the score gets bigger, louder, and more orchestral.

This is just one of those movies you will think about. A lot. You’ll watch it, and then you’ll go home, and think about what it all meant. How it made you feel. Why it made you feel that way.

And there’s something admirable about a film willing to challenge the assumptions not only of its characters, but also its viewers.

Enjoy the film.

A fact or two about the production that makes you say “oh, neat.”

→ Composer Jerskin Fendrix scored the film without reading the script. Director Yorgos Lanthimos didn’t want him to read the script or watch the original film it is based on, Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet!. Lanthimos only shared three words with him: bees, basement and spaceship.

→ Yorgos Lanthimos insisted on casting a non-professional, neurodivergent actor to play Don. Aidan Delbis, who is autistic, didn’t do any training before joining the cast at age 17. Lanthimos suggested “he would bring his own experience and perception and way of thinking and energy. And that was what was so priceless.” Plemons immediately felt bonded to Delbis: “We just hit it off…very quickly he began to feel like my cousin.”

One great line of dialogue from the film.

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