By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer
Jesse Plemons has a plea: Pause Netflix and go see “Bugonia” in the theater.
The film, in which he plays a conspiracy theorist who kidnaps and tortures Emma Stone’s pharma CEO, believing her to be an alien, is the kind that might seem small in scope. On a certain level, it’s three people — the possibly insane mastermind Teddy (Plemons), his cousin and accomplice Don (Aidan Delbis) and their victim Michelle Fuller (Stone) — in a basement. And yet, in the hands of filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and his collaborators, it feels big in scope too, with a booming score, raw performances, grand themes about perceptions of reality and the human experiment and an ever-escalating tension as you try to figure out whom to believe.
“It’s a very entertaining film and a ride,” Stone said in an interview alongside her co-star. “It’s not this heavy meditation on something. There is a bit of absurdism and that stamp that he (Yorgos) puts on everything where there’s humor laced all throughout.”
“Bugonia” arrives in select theaters this weekend on a wave of good buzz and reviews after premiering at the Venice Film Festival. But it’s also coming into a theatrical marketplace that has been, at best, tough on art films and awards hopefuls, no matter how starry or well-reviewed.
Lanthimos’ films have broken through the noise before, especially when Stone is involved. “Poor Things” was hardly an assured box office hit, but managed to make over $117 million — over three times its production budget — by the end of its run.
“Bugonia” marks Stone’s fourth film with Lanthimos and Plemons’ second — they both recently appeared in his “Kinds of Kindness.” And they hope it breaks the current streak of art house fizzles.
“It’s a movie that feels made to be experienced in theaters,” Plemons said. “I’d like to talk to all the people out there right now and say, ‘You can do it. You can pause Netflix, and come back to it, but you should see this in a theater.'”
Stone chimed in, laughing: “He said it! He said the controversial thing!”
From ‘Save the Green Planet’ to ‘Bugonia’
“Bugonia” is based on a 2003 Korean movie called “Save the Green Planet!” which also blended elements of science fiction and black comedy in its satirical meditation on truth and corporate misdeeds. It was the era of the coronavirus lockdowns when the idea of making an English-language version took hold, with screenwriter Will Tracy (“Succession,” “The Menu”) behind the adaptation. In Tracy’s script, the setting would switch to the U.S. and the CEO would become a woman.
“Sometimes you make these big decisions like that and it’s not like there’s a lot of premeditation about why and gender politics and any of it,” Tracy said. “It just seemed interesting.”
The gender switch had been made before Lanthimos came on board three years ago, but it was the kind of choice that opened up a door for him to call one of his favorites: Stone.
“So much about the story was intriguing,” Stone said. “This sort of tightrope walk of what she’s being accused of. The tension between her and Teddy.”
Also, she said, there was something exciting about playing the kind of boss who makes big pronouncements about staff feeling free to leave at 5:30 p.m. — unless, of course, they have work to do.
“Speaking these sorts of corporate-trained platitudes was really fascinating, to learn how to sort of give the illusion of humanity and connection, but done in a way that’s obviously allowed through HR,” Stone said.
It was Lanthimos’ idea to make the title “Bugonia,” which comes from a Greek word referring to a belief that bees were born out of the carcass of a dead ox. Teddy was always a beekeeper on the side, but suddenly they had an apt extended metaphor to play around with, too.
The non-professional breakout star
At Teddy’s side throughout the ordeal is Don, who seems to have his own misgivings about the plan and causing Michelle pain, but whose first loyalty is to his cousin — the only person who seems to care about him. Lanthimos wanted to cast a non-professional, neurodivergent actor in the role and worked with casting director Jennifer Venditti, who had helped make a documentary about a neurodivergent kid, to find the right person.
Delbis, who is autistic, did not do any training before joining the cast at age 17. Some little changes to the script were made to reflect his way of speaking and his presence. But the point, Lanthimos said, was that “he would bring his own experience and perception and way of thinking and energy. And that was what was so priceless.”
It’s perhaps the most important relationship in the film, and Plemons said that he immediately felt bonded to Delbis.
“We just hit it off very quickly and very quickly he began to feel like my cousin that I wanted to protect and hang out with,” Plemons said.
Fighting for a vision
“Bugonia” is a surprisingly physical film, which everyone learned the hard way. Plemons and Stone worked with stunt coordinators for the big fights and the kidnapping scene. But she didn’t foresee just how much physicality was involved in being a captive, bloody, slathered in antihistamine cream and constantly trying to break free.
“Generally I think it was quite a challenge for everyone because it’s such a constrained film, just being in those few locations,” Lanthimos said. “We started forgetting what day it was, and if it was day or night outside.”
Plemons also had quite a bit of biking and running around for the exciting final 30 minutes of the film.
“Hats off to them for putting up with my writing,” Tracy said.
Stone, who also produced, remembered filming a scene one night in which she’s walking barefoot through a parking lot with ambulances all around her and giving Tracy some grief. What sounded fairly straightforward took on a lot of complications because they were shooting in England and the vehicles needed to be American.
“I was like, ‘You were just sitting there in your room, and you wrote one sentence: Michelle limps across the parking and there are ambulances,'” Stone said. “It was just like, wow must be nice! We spent a lot of money on that one line you wrote. You could have cut it!” Stone said.
She is mostly kidding. It might have been expensive, but they still did the shot. As a producer, Stone says she wants nothing more than to protect the integrity of a film, whether she’s acting in it or not.
“The American film system is really tricky with notes and studios and so many things that come in the way of people being able to realize that vision in the fullest capacity,” Stone said. “There’s no better feeling than getting to help facilitate someone bringing their story to life in the fullest way that they can imagine it being, and trying to be their advocate throughout every step of the process.”
She added, laughing: “Michelle Fuller.”