The Alien Invaders Just Want to Chat

"A remake of the 2003 South Korean black comedy Save the Green Planet, Bugonia retains the broad strokes of the earlier film's plot. But Lanthimos applies his own, distinctive touch. Save the Green Planet indulges in knotty twists and a maximalist visual flair; Bugonia, meanwhile,is muted, often resembling a chamber drama. There are few characters, minimal flourishes of surreality, and a complete lack of the outré whimsy that defined several of Lanthimos's previous projects with Stone, including Poor Thingsand The Favourite."

"As they gently buzz about in a field of wildflowers, a voice-over intones the glory of the insects' lives. Their ability to help another species reproduce through pollination is, the speaker marvels, like "sex, but cleaner." Their beauty emerges from their "larger organizing principle." The voice belongs to Teddy (played by Jesse Plemons), a recluse who spends his days alternating between beekeeping and obsessively researching "Andromedans," a humanoid race of extraterrestrials that he and other deep-web truthers believe has infiltrated Earth's population."

Bugonia opens with images of bees and a voice that praises their pollinating role, likening it to "sex, but cleaner." Teddy, a reclusive beekeeper, obsesses over Andromedans, a supposed humanoid alien race, and believes Michelle Fuller, a pharmaceutical CEO, is central to their plan. After kidnapping and imprisoning Michelle, Teddy's paranoia unfolds into an intimate, slow-burning study of cruelty and obsession. The film remakes the South Korean black comedy Save the Green Planet but strips excess flourish in favor of a muted, chamber-drama style that evokes Lanthimos's austere earlier works and bleak, Beckett-like existentialism.

Read at The Atlantic