I Love Bugonia

Bugonia is crazy. I have been Bugoned. I am Bugone. I loved it.

The movie is about, as you may know, sly and self-assured businesswoman Emma Stone being kidnapped by some weirdos who think she's an alien with a big alien plan to destroy the world - necessarily in part via pharmaceuticals. I usually don't make use of big spoiler warnings in my posts (because I am evil and I want you to get spoiled), but for this film I think it's better to go in blind, so I will now graciously warn you: I will spoil it.

First though, I want to talk about the sheer magnitude of the performances. Stone is at her best, as an alternately confused yet calm, and then somewhat stern and sinister woman. Jesse Plemons gives the perfect jittery performance as Teddy - he's always great to watch, but here he's adding a sort of erratic jumpiness to his usual quiet guy character, and it's just so good. You really believe that there is something wrong with him, but it doesn't take away from the more explosive and righteous elements of his character. We also have cousin Don, a wonderfully layered autistic character played by Aiden Delbis, who was, interestly, found through an open call.

It's nice to see autistic actors playing autistic characters, and I'm going to go ahead and place Don right next to Dr. King from The Pitt in my list of My Big Favourite Autistic Characters. Now there are two. Life is looking up.

Don is a fascinating character in that he is, in many respects, the closest thing to an audience stand-in we get here. He goes along with his cousin's mad abduction plan, partly through pure familial love, and partly because, well, maybe what his cousin believes is really true. The very fact that he's autistic is a big part of what makes him such a great vector for audience reaction. He's confused and conflicted - so are we. He's direct and straightforward and vulnerable, and so we relate to him and feel for him, but he's also an interesting contrast with the relatively cool and clear abductee. Both of Emma Stone's abductors are nervous and ticking like little alarm clocks waiting to go off, but where Teddy remains committed to his plan, sure of his reality, Don struggles with who and what to believe. He is, in some respects, the only human left in this story. His still hesitation and completely transparent thought processes convey a sort of ideal humanity, in a way.

So the characters are eminently watchable, the set pieces and shots are gorgeous and tactile, and the central questions the movie throws up are compelling and unrelenting, never quite solved until the movie's final scenes. And man, those scenes are some of the best ever made. We rush through a very funny, bizarre hostage situation in which Emma Stone types a long string of numbers into her calculator in order to, apparently, contact her mothership, Teddy blows himself up with hidden homemade explosives (oops!), and then she scrambles to her teleporter and enters the gorgeous, vegetal structure that is her ethereal mothership. Oh my God... she's the emperor.

This is such a fun, immense reveal. Of course she was really an alien. Yeah. Obviously. She has a meeting with the other aliens, who have long hair and Labubu-esque fuzzy bodysuits, and they decide, sombrely, to kill all humans. Awww... noooo....

Slay.

 
Ms. Bugonia (this is the name I am giving her) pops the Earth's atmosphere with a frown, and bye-bye we all go. The movie gives us one final, considered moment of beauty here, as it shows us several lengthy, almost-still shots of just-dead humans in various environments. The human race is over, and it's this sad, beautiful, astonishing, funny moment.

RIP. 

Five bald women out of five.

★★★★★