‘Bugonia’ took Emma Stone – and her algorithm – to some pretty weird places

By Thomas Page, CNN

(CNN) — Emma Stone’s algorithm is playing up again.

The two-time Academy Award winner reported in May that she was being fed a load of “crazy sh*t” online since researching her part as a woman swept up by a cult in Ari Aster’s pandemic satire “Eddington,” released this summer.

Stone’s latest role in this week’s “Bugonia” – in which she plays a pharmaceutical executive accused of being an alien – has not helped matters.

“I don’t know if you know about the starseed community?” she asked CNN in a recent interview. “Basically, it’s a community of people who say they are a ‘starseed’ – that they are half extraterrestrial – and they’re here amongst humanity and mankind to sort of spread the word. They speak in (their own) languages. It’s a really fascinating community.”

That’s what Stone’s algorithm is pushing her towards?

“Oh yeah, baby,” the actor said, letting out one of her trademark husky laughs. “Oh yeah.”

“Bugonia,” directed by Stone’s frequent collaborator Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things,” “The Favourite”) and written by Will Tracy (“Succession,” “The Menu”), doesn’t dive down the starseed/New Age fringe belief rabbit hole. Instead, it addresses extraterrestrial conspiracies and the darkest corners of the human imagination; where the scapegoats for mankind’s failings live not on Earth but among the stars. It’s also very funny.

An adaptation of 2003 South Korean movie “Save the Green Planet!,” Tracy transplants the story to an anonymous corner of the US. There, Stone’s exec Michelle is the cold face of corporate America, paying lip service to DEI and work-life balance, with a power already alien to all but the 0.1%. She’s quickly kidnapped by cousins Teddy and Don (Jesse Plemons and newcomer Aidan Delbis, respectively), who have reason to believe she’s from Andromeda and behind Earth’s ecological collapse. In their dimly lit basement, Teddy will do everything he can to extract a confession.

It’s the second Lanthimos film in a row in which Plemons has squared off against Stone and accused her character of being an imposter. The last time was in the diabolical triptych “Kinds of Kindness,” which last year had audience members fainting in the aisles (much to Plemons’ delight). “Bugonia” gives them more runway, teasing out the facts of Michelle and Teddy’s lives between bouts of violence and psychological warfare. The actors do cartwheels along a tightrope to nail the tone, which teeters between dark comedy and tragedy – quintessentially Lanthimos.

“I remember cracking up when we were rehearsing it, but then by the time we got into the basement, it didn’t seem as funny,” said Plemons.

“You needed to lock in,” added Stone. “We were shooting on VistaVision (a recently revived way of shooting 35mm film), which is a really gorgeous but very moody camera. And there is an element that’s added to each take, like, is it going to keep rolling or is it going to sputter out?

“It really adds to a sort of insistence and focus in the midst of scenes that’s amazing, and part of the reason I love shooting on film so much … You can’t really screw around.”

Many of “Save The Green Planet!”’s conspiracy-laced themes have been sharpened in Tracy’s adaptation and find extra bite in their new setting. For all the traumas Teddy has endured, we’re left thinking it’s no wonder he believes in aliens, but not in his fellow man.

“It was important to me to, at this moment in cultural history – certainly American cultural history – make a movie about people who would be described as conspiracy theorists and to approach them with empathy,” said Tracy. “Because at the moment, I think so much of that mindset has been cynically co-opted by current political movements and (the) current White House.”

“There’s an instinct to think that everyone who believes in anything that’s not the ‘official story’ is stupid or crazy or right wing,” he added.

“I think underlying a lot of Teddy’s ideas are some truths about the abuses of big pharma, big tech, government, capitalism generally. He’s a victim of that, and I think he’s been pushed into a corner where he has to make his own truth.”

For Lanthimos, “Bugonia” is a minor departure, as it brings what’s usually found in the subtext of his films to the fore.

“I think all of my films are political … even if it’s not mentioned within the film,” he said, while agreeing that “this film is more directly political” than his previous work.

The director has thrown up a warped mirror to society since 2005’s “Kinetta,” finding oblique angles to confront how weird and cruel humanity can be. In “Dogtooth,” three siblings are confined to the family home and made to believe the outside world is unsafe; in “The Lobster” singletons are forced to couple up or be transfigured into an animal of their choosing; in “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” a young man demands blood after a surgeon kills his father on the operating table; and in “Kinds of Kindness,” three short stories dovetail along the theme of sub-dom human relationships.

Arbitrary rulemaking and punishments, absurdism and fringe beliefs are part and parcel of Lanthimos’ storytelling. But in “Bugonia,” the warped mirror he presents has never felt so flush with reality.

“I do think we live in unprecedented times – for my lifetime, at least,” the director said.

“The world has changed drastically, with climate change, politically, with wars, genocides, financially – whatever, you name it.”

“Those things that we explore around characters and stories reflect that reality even stronger, in a way, and we recognize these things more directly. It does have to do with the state of the world right now.”

Plemons described shooting the movie as “survival mode.” Maybe that was just art-making imitating life.

“Bugonia” lands in select US theaters on October 24 before expanding, and in UK theaters on October 31.

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