In her latest film, US actress Emma Stone plays a powerful CEO who is kidnapped by two men who believe she’s an alien.
It might sound a little out there, but Bugonia is one of the most talked-about movies at this year’s Venice Film Festival, thanks to its unique depiction of the impact of conspiracy theories and echo chambers.
The film could easily have been a preachy lecture about the dangers of the internet. But Bugonia, directed by Oscars favourite Yorgos Lanthimos, is spinning a lot more plates than you initially think, and there is more at play than meets the eye.
“There’s so much that’s happening that I think is reflective of this point in time and our world,” says Stone at the film’s launch, “and is told in a way that I found really fascinating, moving, funny, [messed]-up and alive.”
The film is Stone’s fourth collaboration with Lanthimos following The Favourite, Kinds of Kindness and Poor Things – which won the 36-year-old her second best actress Oscar.
“The opportunity to get to work on these things that I have with him has been just a dream,” Stone reflects, “because this material, there’s so much [to confront].”
The director’s films aren’t for everyone – they are often dark, twisted and gory. But while this one ticks those same boxes, viewers who struggled with his earlier films might find Bugonia more accessible.
Regardless of your thoughts on alien life, the film functions as a gripping kidnap drama, and is a truly wild ride.
Stone plays Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company which a troubled young man, Teddy (Jesse Plemons), holds responsible for his mother’s ill health and a declining bee population.
As a result, Teddy carefully plans the kidnap with his reluctant cousin Don (Aidan Delbis). Stone puts up a hell of a fight, but ultimately ends up being held captive in Teddy’s basement, where much of the film plays out.
It’s easy to dismiss Teddy as crazy, with foil on the windows around his house, but the film gradually shows more of his character and explores the factors that shaped his personality.
“Throughout history, there has been a human instinct to unconsciously categorise someone, and I think I probably tried to do that [with Teddy] when I started reading this script,” says Plemons.
“His core, his relationship with Don, what you discover happened to his mother, I could talk for a long time about Teddy but my way of understanding him was he’s a really tortured soul that was trying with all his might to help. It’s a crazy thing to say, but I believe that.”
It’s true, Teddy believes, that capturing the CEO and trying to extract information from her is for the greater good of humanity. Some of his beliefs seem ridiculous and he would be laughed at by many – but that’s the point.
“For all his ranting and raving, Plemons brings plenty of depth to Teddy, a man who has locked himself down in the wake of past traumas,” wrote Screen Daily’s Nikki Baughan.
“In this battle of wits between this well-dressed, carefully-controlled woman and this pony-tailed, irrational bumpkin, we know who we are supposed to believe. But can we? Should we?”
Plemons, who previously scored an Oscar nomination for The Power of the Dog, says Bugonia appealed because it forced him to confront his own preconceptions about people on the fringes of society.
“I think we have an instinct in general to close the book on things that are scary, hard to look at, hard to understand.”
“For me as an actor, it’s a way I can try and make sense of some of these things, and some of these people who are very difficult to understand. And there’s a risk in writing them off as being non-human, because they are [human], and they exist.”
Bugonia is a loose remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 Korean sci-fi movie Save the Green Planet! – but Plemons admits he didn’t watch it before shooting, so he could approach the role uninfluenced.
The role required Stone to shave her head. Or, more accurately, for the two men holding her captive to shave it for her.
“Was it easy for me to shave my hair? It was the easiest thing in the world, you just take the razor, it’s so much easier than any hairstyle,” the actress laughs.
Asked whether she gives any credence to theories about aliens, she doesn’t totally shut down the idea.
“One of my favourite people who has ever lived is [astronomer] Carl Sagan,” she explains. “I watched his show Cosmos, and fell madly in love with his philosophy and science and how brilliant he seems to be.
“He very deeply believed that the idea that we are alone in this vast expanse of the universe is a pretty narcissistic thing to think.
“So yes,” she jokes, raising her hand, “I’m coming out with it, I believe in aliens, thank you.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney described Bugonia as a “genre-hopping blast of suspense, sci-fi, paranoia and dark comedy” and said Lanthimos “can always be relied upon to serve up something weird and subversive”.
“As things grow increasingly frantic and gruesome, Lanthimos expertly milks maximum comic tension,” said the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin in a five-star review.
Stone was widely praised for her central performance, even by critics who were less keen on the film as a whole.
Time’s Stephanie Zacharek said the actress is “a bold, creative performer” who is “laceratingly funny and bracingly convincing”.
But she also described the movie as “punishing”, adding that while “Stone can do anything, that doesn’t mean she should.”
It could be tempting to describe the film as dystopian, but Lanthimos doesn’t think that quite hits the mark.
“Not much of the dystopia in this film is fictional,” he notes. “A lot of it reflects the real world. If anything, this film says, this is happening now, and actually it became more relevant as time went by.
“Humanity is facing a reckoning very soon, people need to choose the right path in many ways, otherwise I don’t know how much time we have, with technology, AI, with wars.
“And the denial of all these things, how desensitised we’ve become to them. To me, it’s a reflection of our times and hopefully will trigger people to think today.”
Also read: Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Bugonia’ gets 7-minute applause at Venice
