"Bugonia" Review

 Earlier this year Emma Stone was out on red carpets with a rather unflattering pixie cut. While some questioned her poor tonsorial judgement, when the trailer for her fourth collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia, dropped, the reason for her hairstyle became clear: She'd shaved her head for the role of a corporate CEO kidnapped by conspiracy theorists who believe she's an alien who can be tracked by her hair, so by shaving it off and slathering her skin with antihistamine cream to prevent her sending out a distress signal, they intend to force her to arrange a meeting with the Andromedan Emperor in four days during a lunar eclipse.

Her captors are Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis, making his film debut and is on the spectrum), who live in the country in a rundown house with bee hives out back. As the plot progresses, we're given hints as to their circumstances including bizarre flashbacks to Teddy's mother, Sandy (Alicia Silverstone), who has a connection to the company Michelle Fuller (Stone) runs which is also Teddy's employer. Lurking around the perimeter is Sheriff's Deputy Casey (Stavros Halkias), who was Teddy's babysitter and is apologetic about something he did to Teddy back then.

The bulk of the film is the battle of wills and wits between Michelle and Teddy as she tries to win her freedom and he tries to get her to admit she's Andromedan. After she withstands a massive amount of electrical current while he tortures her, Teddy decides this means she's part of the Andromedan royalty and begins to treat her better. But that doesn't last long and when the 3rd act rolls around, to quote Ron Burgundy, "That escalated quickly."

While the missus really liked it, I found Bugonia somewhat flat and drawn out for what it does. The script by Will Tracy - who wrote the cruelly snubbed by Oscar film The Menu - adapts a 2003 South Korean film called Save the Green Planet!, but as good as The Menu was with its biting morality play over several dinner courses, Bugonia ultimately rests on the question of is Michelle an alien or not? (FWIW, I guessed the answer correctly really early on.) The ending is rather downbeat in a bad way as well.

I've been a fan of Stone's since Superbad though I didn't really catch onto how special she was until The Rocker. She's developed further into a bold, risk-taking actress as anyone who saw Poor Things can attest and she's her usual excellent here as well. As she's spewing corporate diversity speak it makes one wonder if she has a soul. It's strange to see Plemons slimmed down from his previous Philip Seymour Hoffman Jr.-esque plump physique, but he's good in a narrowly written role where he's set up as a sweaty kook. 

After the constructed artifice of Poor Things, I looked at the limited settings of Bugonia - a country house, a CEO's luxury home, an office building - and figured Lanthimos wanted to make a smaller scale, lower budget film, but apparently this was the most expensive movie he's made with a $55 million budget which means its $35M gross made it a big flop. I can understand it having limited appeal, but can't fathom why they didn't keep the budget commensurate to its likely box office for a movie about a CEO kidnapped, head shaved, battle of wills with weirdos.

Score: 5/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.