BUGONIA is yet another absolutely brilliantly disturbing, darkly funny, occasionally moving, and frequently bonkers film from auteur Yorgos Lanthimos. If Johan Cruyff coined the term “total football” then I am coining the phrase “total cinema” to describe the completely immersive, unique and genre-defying worlds that Lanthimos creates. I left the LFF screening on a cinema-high, buzzing with amazement and admiration for yet another banger. What a film!
Once again, he partners with his Oscar-winning muse Emma Stone, who plays a smart, resilient CEO of a biomedical firm. It’s yet another masterclass performance from arguably the finest actress of her generation. And yet, she is more than matched, if not upstaged by Jesse Plemons, who has impressed me ever since playing a teen football start on Friday Night Lights, and has since matured into arguably the finest actor of that same cohort. He plays a deeply tragic character called Teddy, whose childhood was marred by abuse and addiction, and whose adulthood was marred by medical injury. As so many in these dark and divisive times, he spirals into an internet conspiracy that involves kidnapping the aforementioned CEO.
The film is basically a two-hander, and I could watch Stone and Plemons go at it all day. A potential criticism of the film is that those scenes almost play like a theatre production. In support we have two performances from debutant Aidan Deblis and Stavros Halkias as Teddy’s malleable young cousin and old babysitter, now cop, respectively. The former is particularly heartbreaking.
The film moves through its gears and there were a lot of belly laughs and moments of horror. I feel that you need a director who is in absolute control of a film’s construction and tone to pull this off successfully. I also wonder whether the extremity and absurdity will alienate a mainstream audience. I love that the final act can be interpreted in two very different and both equally valid ways. I tend toward a more trauma-induced explanation but Mr007 took it literally. We both agreed that it owed something to Lars Von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA and that the themes of the film are a perfect encapsulation of all that’s wrong with our current moment: whether the banality and venality of corporate life, climate change or the rise of conspiracy nutters to high office.
There is nothing not to love about this film.
BUGONIA has a running time of 120 minutes. It played Venice, Telluride and London. It opens in the USA on October 31st and in the UK on November 7th.
