In Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos Finds Roots of Paranoia That Aren’t So Alien
The film is one of many out this year which live in a world of conspiracy and self-doubt.
Illustration by Lulu Lin
When Will Tracy was writing the script for Bugonia, it was April 2020. Locked down with a newborn in a small Brooklyn apartment, he channeled it all into the work: “What was happening in the world and also what was happening in my own head, which was confusion, fear and paranoia,” Tracy says.
In the film, Jesse Plemons plays Teddy, a man on the margins of society who’s tried every ideology—alt-right, leftist, Marxist—but has settled on a belief in his own unique conspiracy. He’s convinced that aliens known as Andromedons are living among humans and enslaving them. So he decides to fight back, kidnapping pharmaceutical boss Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), who he believes is one of these extraterrestrials, to get her to admit her loyalty and summon her ship so he can negotiate. More bonkers: The premise doesn’t feel all that far-fetched.