Toxic, Chappell Roan-belting girlboss… or alien among us sent to annihilate all of living Earth? In Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia,” his latest film and fourth feature with Emma Stone, you decide. A new trailer offers a fresh glimpse at the movie, coming to theaters in time for Halloween.
In “Bugonia,” Jesse Plemons plays a conspiracy-addled beekeeper who kidnaps a high-powered big pharma CEO (that’s Stone), convinced that she is an extraterrestrial intent on destroying the planet. He also ropes fellow and more impressionable conspiracist Don (Aidan Delbis) into the hijack.
Will Tracy (“The Menu”) adapts the script as a remake of the 2004 Korean sci-fi film “Save the Green Planet!,” directed by Jang Joon-hwan. Lanthimos’ tenth movie first premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival, with Focus Features releasing the movie after his collaborations with Searchlight Pictures.
More on the film from IndieWire’s review: “Imagine if Michael Haneke’s ‘Funny Games’ were instead about a pair of lone-wolf, conservationist vigilantes trying to save the world instead of two sociopathic twinks wanting to tear it down, and you’ll have some idea of the hyper-contained, rigorously controlled torture chamber that is Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Bugonia.’ … Lanthimos works from an on-the-nose-for-the-now feature screenplay by ‘Succession’ and ‘The Menu’ writer Will Tracy, diverting from the droll theater of cruelty present in scripts by Efthimis Filippou (‘Kinds of Kindness’) or the florid repartee of Tony McNamara (‘The Favourite,’ ‘Poor Things’). ‘Bugonia‘ has all the streak of Tracy’s kill-the-rich brand of satire, but with the Greek Oscar-nominated filmmaker interrogating the potential performativity of such capitalist-fighting crusades.
Also, read Anne Thompson’s interview with Jesse Plemons out of Telluride here.
“Bugonia” is Lanthimos’ buzziest film since “Poor Things” won Emma Stone the Best Actress Oscar; “Kinds of Kindness” was a creative detour from that film’s grandiosity that performed unimpressively at the box office. The sci-fi and comedy elements plus Emma Stone back in the lead should set up “Bugonia” up for success this October.
Focus Features will release “Bugonia” opens in select theaters on Friday, October 24 before expanding everywhere on Friday, October 31. Check out the new trailer below.