I ended up liking “Bugonia,” but getting there wasn’t easy.
Yorgos Lanthimos’s horror film is full of torture porn and so much unpleasantness, I might have walked out of a theater if I’d been in one last night.
Alas, I was lucky enough to be at home but that meant there was no exit.
Emma or Emily Stone and Lanthimos have already proven they can make a strange, wonderful movie with “Poor Things.” They pulled off weirdness with aplomb. The chemistry was just right.
Then they didn’t with “Kinds of Kindness” last year.
I was thinking after the first 40 minutes of “Bugonia,” maybe stop while you’re ahead.
“Bugonia” is based on the Korean film “Save the Green Planet,” which has a cult following. Jang Joon-hwan was supposed to direct the American version, but became ill and Lanthimos took over. Something was lost in the translation.
Stone is an executive in an isolated corporation that has the stark modern feel of the house in “Paranoia.” Her house is the same. She seems like an uptight corporate type handling many employees, but if you think about it later, all is not as it appears.
Very quickly, two employees kidnap her. They are Jesse Plemons — almost emaciated — and Aidan Delbis, whose real life autism is played for bizarre-ness. They’re odd, greasy and dirty, poor, but — at least in Plemons’ case — extremely articulate. They’re also psychotic and violent. All of those ingredients make a recipe for disaster.
“Bugonia” is not a Coen brothers movie. There’s no fun in the kidnapping. Or rather, it’s more of the woodchipper from “Fargo” than “Raising Arizona.” For about 40 minutes there’s promise of a turn in which the kidnapping will be overcome and something strangely beautiful will occur. But the second act, so to speak, is difficult enough that the surprises of the third may not be worth it to most people.
The kidnappers believe Stone is an alien, and have their own proof. It seems ridiculous until you start putting the pieces together. Maybe they’re not so wrong. They’re crazy but maybe like foxes. Stone’s corporate leader is a skilled negotiator, so she’ll say anything to get out of this predicament. Do we believe her?
If you can make it through the violent desert of that middle section, the climax and denouement are unexpected prizes. But by that time, like me, you may have wondered how you possibly stayed put. Unlike “Poor Things” — in which Stone helped create a world of wide eyed wonder in the middle of madness — “Bugonia” is just weird. Yes, it’s social satire to a point, and then it’s not.
That third part — well, let’s say that’s where the money was spent, so that part is a pay off. For the first two thirds of “Bugonia,” it’s basically a stage play with two or three characters in a standoff. At least visually, the ending is something to behold in what becomes a sci fi horror show. “Bugonia” has all the makings of a cult movie to be, if there were still college cinemas that could bring in crowds.
I was torn. Did I hate it? Yeah, some of it. But the brilliance at the end — it’s worth waiting — was a gift wrapped in shiny paper. I was happy to open it.
Are audiences enjoying this movie? “Bugonia” has an 83% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which seems about right. Critics liked it only a little more, at 87%. It’s a B plus at least for now. In ten years, we may feel differently.
