Bugonia

London Film Festival review

For a moment BUGONIA is like watching "Misery" or "Funny Games" through the lens of 1950s Hollywood dystopian paranoia films. Yorgos follows the sadistic path he started in The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Kinds Of Kindness playing with Kubrick-like visuals and sounds to deliver a fairly straightforward cynical fable until it's not.

Emma and Jesse explore a violent theatricality and beautiful expressionism to great success. Both are harrowing and spectacular (this is Plemons best part ever) but are also limited by the linearity of it all. The last act reconnects Lanthimos with his subversive, unpredictable and absurd poetry but I guess Media, Politics and Truths are this year's true topics. Not surprising this film shares common grounds with Eddington.

I wanted to love it but I just really really liked it.

If you are a Horror Thriller fan, go see this! It has Comedy but it was too serious of a subject to make me laugh, kidnapping, torture, abuse, the movie is basically horror thriller and you can see why i say this...I did not enjoy poor things, it ended up being a Victorian Era P0RN0.... This movie is more straightforward and easier to get behind...it's a movie you must see in theaters...I went in blind, i only knew about emma stone being baId and kidnapped because this guy thinks she's an Alien...It's one of those movies you can rewatch and better than most films that have came out this year...I would compare it to the Substance, although Substance is way more wild...Go SEE THIS.

Lanthimos strikes again! And it's another masterpiece. Black Comedy, Satire, Social critic on internet conspiracy theories, weird, absurd, witty, bloody and last but not least a nihilistic comment on mankind working on its own extinction.

And what an intelligent screenplay it is! And all in all an exciting and entertaining movie with surprising twists. How many times can you leave the theatre feeling refreshed and inspired, because you know you have just watched something you have never seen on a screen before? Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons deliver great performances, on top of their skills. It's such a pleasure to watch actors with their depth and intensity.

I loved the whole experience, it's a brilliant movie, strongly recommended.

Bugonia is a classic Yorgos Lanthimos movie as it examines the darkest parts of human nature in a characteristically darkly comedic fashion but it also offers something different when it operates as a tense thriller. It's a neatly structured film that only gets better once things properly escalate in a genuinely shocking way and it reaches a satisfying conclusion. This is another recent release which really feels of the moment.

Jesse Plemons is amazing by being fully committed to the naivety of his character which makes him equally threatening and gullible. Emma Stone is effortlessly confident and funny as she slowly begins to control the situation, continuing her winning collaboration with Yorgos in a way that shows her full potential once again. It's the constantly shifting power play between these two that keeps it so investing and unpredictable.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos delivers one of his strongest films to date where the trademark surrealism feels more appropriate thanks to the premise whilst working with some of his most consistent collaborators behind the camera. Robbie Ryan's cinematography knows how to make each scene look beautiful and surreal at the same time, complimented by Jerskin Fendrix's suitably paranoid score ensuring everything feels ominous when needed.

Bugonia is a dark (VERY dark in some places) comedy / sci-fi story involving a conspiracy theorist who thinks Andromedins have invaded the Earth.

Performances are hit and miss. I'm sure some of this has to do with the writing, but Aidan Delbis didn't pull off the "challenged partner-in-crime." He was doing something with his lip that reminded me of Bill Murray in Caddyshack. Given that the movie is so dark, I think they could have written this character as someone with a legitimate mental illness, and have it portrayed that way, preferably by someone else. The comedic angle of this character fell flat. This same character type was played straight in the movie Good Time to a much greater effect.

I also think Teddy was far too stupid to have pulled any of this off. Jesse Plemons did a serviceable job playing Jesse, but the character was written to be too unintelligent.

Overall, this was a decent movie. The ending was a little opaque, but it's easy enough to follow the general idea without Googling.

8/10.