BUGONIA

It's a tired trope to say that any filmmaker has a Kubrickean quality, but the allusions to Stanley Kubrick feel appropriate here. Like the legendary filmmaker, Lanthimos balances existential dread with technical precision and an almost hypermania. The camera always feels slightly detached, as if we're watching some sort of experiment taking place, and even when we find Teddy, Don or Michelle in distress, it simply refuses to emotionally engage. This isn't to say that 'Bugonia' is a cold film - like Kubrick's work, it's actually the opposite. There's the sense at every turn in 'Bugonia' that the film is about to completely lose its mind, not because everything is so ridiculous, but because it places us so squarely inside Teddy's mind, more so than with Bella in 'Poor Things' or David in 'The Lobster'. That point of view is important and carefully constructed. The film wouldn't work if we simply dismissed Teddy as a paranoid lunatic or a right-wing conspiracist; Lanthimos and Tracy need us to sympathise with him, to understand what drives his delusions. This makes for a far more nuanced film than may have been the case with a less inquisitive director; for Lanthimos, it isn't enough to depict a man on the edge of sanity in the face of societal collapse - he wants us to understand what causes such a mind to crack in the first place.

Determined to take control of the world, one that has isolated him and decimated his family, Teddy sets about dismantling the apparatus that (he believes) makes it tick. That's part of the horror of 'Bugonia', that while we understand that all these grievances are isolated incidents and that Teddy is experiencing the emotional cumulation of them, we also understand his need for an answer, to find a pattern in the chaos, to find someone to blame. His target is pretty astute (it probably is the billionaires that are fucking us over), but rather than see these institutions of power as the problem, he has to believe that something more insidious and extraterrestrial must be at fault. After all, accepting that the world has been broken by something as banal as human greed could fully break your belief in the human race. There's also the thread of entitlement in Teddy, a cisgender white male who doesn't understand why the system that he always believed would look out for him has ultimately abandoned him. The film is careful to emphasise Teddy as an isolationist (with Don as a borderline-unwilling, borderline-manipulated accomplice), but it does tell us that this position, that Earth is being destroyed by a secret alien race, is the final destination after a long journey of reactionary exploration.

With such a juicy premise and this creative team, one might come to 'Bugonia' to bask in the ridiculousness of it all, but while the film still possesses Lanthimos' very distinct sense of humour, it might also be his most disturbing and upsetting film. It isn't set in the past or in the realm of the privileged, but in a recognisable suburban home. Teddy and Don eat food we would eat, work in the kind of jobs we would work in, and struggle to survive in a way that feels relatable and recognisable. We see ourselves in them, and thus see ourselves in the horrors that Teddy commits. Lanthimos isn't one to take the easy route, but there's a real brutality to 'Bugonia', with a number of sequences purposely difficult to watch. Robbie Ryan's cinematography (particularly the tight 1.50:1 framing) creates a strong sense of claustrophobia, as if we (like Michelle) are trapped inside the film. Jerskin Fendrix dials the brutality up even further with his discordant, wonderful score, somewhere between baroque classical and modernist sensory assault. 'Bugonia' moves at such a meticulous pace, each moment of dread and insanity building inexorably on the last, each piece of information carefully delivered only emphasising Teddy's sorrow and pain, making the threat of violence all the more palpable.

And throughout it all, the question: is Michelle actually an alien? This is perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the film's construction, that we can see Teddy's delusions as exactly that, a delusion, while also questioning whether he might, in fact, be right. Whether Lanthimos chooses to answer this question, you'll have to see for yourself, but while I won't say whether it delivers in a narrative sense, it certainly does thematically, making a film already rich in ideas and observations into a truly delicious, dynamic and astute spectacle.

As you would expect, all the central performances are spectacular. Thank god for Lanthimos finally turning Jesse Plemons into the star he deserves to be. A lot of what makes Teddy sympathetic is how gentle and honest Plemons' performance is, to the point where you don't even feel like you're watching a performance. He's a necessary anchor of naturalism for the film, especially one as wild and discordant as 'Bugonia'. He's balanced beautifully by Aidan Delbis as Don, who emerges as the heart of the film. Delbis is an actor on the autism spectrum, but rather than being forced to play a tired neurodivergent stereotype, he is given a real gift with Don, a sharp and deeply empathetic character who supports his cousin, even when he doubts what he's telling him. His comic timing is impeccable and a perfect match for Lanthimos, his chemistry with Plemons is electric and his major scenes in the film are amongst the more powerful. It's really, really great to see both a neurodivergent character and performer given this much space to shine, and if there's any justice, Deblis should have a hell of a career ahead of him. Also worth noting is Stavros Halkias as Teddy's childhood babysitter Casey. Again, I won't say too much, but Halkias is charming as hell in his few scenes, all the more remarkable for what Lanthimos asks him to pull off, which he does with startling ease.

And then there's Emma Stone, yet again delivering a career-defining performance, once again while in a Yorgos Lanthimos film. It felt like 'Poor Things' was the perfect symbiosis of them as actor and director, but 'Bugonia' somehow, somehow surpasses even that Oscar-winning collaboration. What she does in this film is borderline unbelievable, a truly great actor in complete command of their craft. The only thing that stopped me laughing as much as I wanted to was that my jaw was on the floor, watching her performance.

'Bugonia' is a hard film to talk about without spoiling anything, mostly because, as the credits roll, you want to unpack it immediately with everyone around you. It isn't just the insane narrative coup that it pulls off or the incredible craft in its construction. More than anything, it's the recognition you feel as you watch it. The paranoia these characters feel, you know it well - the sense that something is very wrong and that we feel completely powerless to stop it. Perhaps we aren't jumping to the conclusions Teddy does, but my god, wouldn't it be great if we could? Wouldn't it be so much easier to believe that we hadn't gotten ourselves into this mess, that something extraterrestrial and all-powerful has been playing us this whole time? That isn't our own damn fault? That there was something we could actually do to fix this? Few films this year have tapped into that collective anxiety with as much imagination, clarity and bombast as 'Bugonia', yet another remarkable film from one of the great contemporary filmmakers, the master of making us laugh in order to stop us from screaming.