"As the end credits began to scroll at my screening of Bugonia, the audience sat silently in the darkness for several long seconds. Director Yorgos Lanthimos' latest film follows Teddy (Jesse Plemmons), a grimy, raw-boned conspiracy theorist who, alongside his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), kidnaps Michelle (Emma Stone) a steely Big Pharma CEO, because he's convinced himself she's an alien."
"It's not uncommon for a movie to lull a theater full of people into a moment of collective contemplation, of course. Such silences take various forms, depending on the film that precedes them: stunned, or thoughtful, or weighted with emotion. But Bugonia is a Lanthimos film. Which explains why, at its conclusion, the audience decided to take a moment to sit with it, before a lone voice pierced the gloom: "The f***," it shouted, "was that?" Reader, I grinned."
Bugonia centers on Teddy, a grimy conspiracy theorist who, with his cousin Don, kidnaps Michelle, a steely Big Pharma CEO he believes is an alien. The film provokes a taut, unsettled atmosphere that elicits stunned silence and outraged confusion from audiences at its conclusion. Lanthimos deploys bleak, despondent tones and uncomfortable humor to examine the abject misery of the human condition rather than aim for mainstream reassurance. Performances by Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone anchor the story while the film’s provocative tone generates polarized reactions from viewers seeking either provocation or comfort.
Read at www.npr.org
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